


The Good Neighbor

by FortinbrasFTW



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Anal Sex, Cute Kids, Drunken Confessions, Frank's kids, M/M, PTSD mentions, Romantic Comedy, Sex scene in later chapters, cop frank, cop karen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-06-08 11:20:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6852580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortinbrasFTW/pseuds/FortinbrasFTW
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nelson and Murdock tackle a particularly challenging case, a case that would be much easier if Matt didn't have a new neighbor who apparently just can't help making his life that much more miserable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to @corpium for the beta reading! You're the best <3

He’s late. Again. 

It’s the third time this week, and the real kicker is that this time, it’s not even his fault. Not that it makes it any better. 

Matt hurries towards the door of his apartment. He hasn’t had time to shut the windows but that should be alright, it probably won’t rain today, if he’s lucky. The crisp spring scents of the city fill up the yawning apartment, sounds from the traffic outside pushing up and in along with them. Matt shoulders his suit jacket onto one arm then to the other as he gets to the door, finding the cool familiar outline of his keys with his free hand on the table by the door. He runs a hand through his hair impatiently, still a little damp from the rushed shower. He pockets the keys, realizing his tie is probably anything but straight, but he can fiddle with it as soon as he has any kind of time. Foggy’s probably already been at the office for an hour, pouring through at least three cases worth of documents, taking the heavy load as usual.

Matt tries to blink the sleepiness away, firmly pushing his circular glasses up onto his nose as he finally shoves his way out of the apartment. The handle of the door clunks shut with the same weary sound it always does and he gives it a kick just to be sure it’s made it all the way. The weight of his phone in his pocket gives a buzz, just a friendly little reminder of exactly how late he is. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” Matt swears under his breath, turning to the stairs. 

There’s a sound within the apartment across the hall. Matt stops, one foot on the top step.

He grits his teeth. He’s late already. It doesn’t matter. He can worry about it later. But the apartment is right there, the only other one on the floor, just across the wide, worn down landing. He can hear the footsteps, solid against the old floors. 

Should he? Would it really make any difference? He drums his fingers once, twice, against the top of his cane. Fuck it. If he’s going to be late it’s at least going to be someone else’s fault. 

He crosses the familiar space across the landing easily. His knuckles hesitate for a moment above the peeling paint of the door, but he tightens his jaw and gives three good hard knocks. 

The footsteps inside the other apartment stop. Matt knocks again, harder this time. After a moment, the steps turn his way, solid and sturdy on the old wooden floors. Matt takes a step back as he hears a heavy hand hit the doorknob. 

The door pulls open. The deep grumble of a voice answers. “Yeah?”

The smells he remembers from the last time he walked past him on the stairway meet him again: strong coffee, gun cleaner, generic soap mixed with lingering hints of sweat, and something else as well that he can’t quite place, oatmeal maybe? He might have been eating breakfast when he knocked.

Matt clears his throat crisply. “Hi.”

He can feel the man’s eyes watching him skeptically, steadily. “Morning, councillor.” His voice grates like a pipe on concrete. 

Ah. ‘Councillor’. That’s right. Matt takes a deep breath. Perfect. Just perfect.

“I forgot.” Matt says. “You’re an officer in the 35th. Isn’t that right? You know me from the station.”

“I might.”

“I think you do,” Matt pushes back.

“Look,” he feels the man’s weight shift, hears a scuff as though he’s propped himself on a thick forearm on the door-jam. “You want something, or what?”

Irritation sparks under Matt’s skin. “I’m late. For work. Again.”

“Oh yeah? That’s too bad.” He can feel the lopsided smirk drag onto the man’s face. “And, how’s that any kind of my problem?”

“Your TV.”

“What about it?”

“You had it on, late last night. And the night before. It’s loud.”

“Funny,” the man shrugs, “no one else was complaining.”

“We’re the only people on this floor.”

“Huh,” Matt can feel him looking around, tone distinctly unimpressed. “Guess that’s so.”

“Then this morning…,” Matt leads hopefully, “…the music?”

“Let me guess, too loud?”

“For 5AM? Yeah, you could probably call it too loud.”

“I workout,” he shrugs, “I listen to music.”

Matt remembers the dull thudding pushing through the walls, must have been a punching bag, smacking again and again and again, with the scathing soundtrack of Metallica coming right along with it.

Matt shrugs. “Maybe, go to a gym?”

“You gonna tell me how to work out, councillor?”

“My name’s Matt,” he says sharply.

The man’s quiet for a moment, gaze heavy and persistent. “Yeah. So I gather.”

And god this isn’t getting him anywhere. He’s wasting his time, and even later than when he started. “It’s loud, alright? All of it. I couldn’t go to sleep with the TV. And when I finally did get to sleep the music woke me up again, so now I’m late, for the third time this week.”

“Sure are chatty for someone who’s late. For the third time this week.”

Great. Well, what the hell else did he really expect? Matt rolls his eyes behind his glasses. “Look, just, can you try to keep it down? Alright?”

“Yeah,” the man’s tone tightens. “Sure, councillor. You got it.” The door swings shut in his face. 

Perfect. Just perfect. The day just keeps getting better.

It’s almost eleven by the time Matt makes it through the familiar glass-knobbed door. He hurries into the office, shutting the door behind him and trying to catch his breath. “Sorry, sorry.”

He can hear Foggy shuffling things about in the back office. “Again, Matt? Seriously?”

The office feels the same as always, open windows letting the feeling of the city roll around between the walls. The sound of the air-conditioning unit two floors down, and the packaging plant on the ground floor. The smell of Foggy’s shampoo, the same one he’s been using since they were nineteen, old plaster walls and bagels that must be waiting on one of the desks.

Matt follows Foggy’s voice to the left, feeling his steps slide right over the little bump of the doorway. He sighs, leaning heavily against the doorframe. “I officially hate my neighbor.”

“Yeah, you and the rest of Manhattan, cry me a river,” Foggy says. He sounds like he’s sitting behind the desk, eyes down and focused as he moves through stack upon stack of files. He can’t be sure but it feels like the stack might be bigger than yesterday. “Mine cooks cabbage.”

Matt blinks. “What?”

“My neighbor. Cabbage. All day. I mean literally, all day. I don’t even think I remember what cabbage smells like anymore, it’s just become a part of me by now.”

“Ah, so that’s what that smell is,” Matt teases.

“Ha, ha,” Foggy pronounces. “But seriously yours can’t be worse than the cabbage baron. Isn’t it just that little old lady who looks like she witnessed the descent of the ten commandments? She got a thing for boiled vegetables, too? Beets maybe? She looks like she’d be into beets.”

“Nah, it’s not her, not anymore. She moved… or died… something. Not sure. Anyways, someone new moved in, about a month ago.”

“Loud dog? Loud sex?” Foggy raises an eyebrow. “Both?”

“Neither.”

“So? What?”

Matt finds the seat opposite the desk and sits down with a sigh, finally reaching up to adjust his tie properly. His hair’s still wet on the edges and he’s a little sticky from hurrying over here so fast. 

“He’s a cop.” He says.

“Oh,” Foggy’s head tilts back slightly, brow furrowing. “And that’s… bad?”

“I’m starting to think most of the cops in this neighborhood aren’t our biggest fans. Him especially.”

“Come on, that’s not true,” Foggy insists, “I mean maybe a few would rather we took longer vacations, sure, but it’s not as bad as all that. No one’s willing Acme safes to drop on our heads or anything.”

“Wouldn’t place any bets against this guy.”

“Really?” Foggy leans forward onto the papers with a rustle. “So what? You think this guy just has it in for you because of what you - we - do? Just cause we’re lawyers? Doesn’t that seem a bit paranoid Matt, I mean even for you? You’re sure he’s not just… kind of a dick in general?”

“Uh, no, I am absolutely convinced he’s kind of a dick in general. But I don’t think that’s it.”

“What makes you say that?”

Matt rolls his eyes. “I don’t know, it’s just… I think it’s just me. I mean he keeps his recyclables right outside the door for pickup every Tuesday. He calls that lady who yells at her cats two floors down ‘ma’am’.”

Foggy snorts. “Seriously?”

Matt furrows his brow. “Actually, I think he calls all the women in our building ma’am.”

“Is he Southern?”

“No,” Matt shakes his head, “no, he sounds like he’s from here.”

“Polite New Yorker, huh? Call the press.”

“Yeah, right, polite to everyone else.” Matt leans forward with a sigh. He pushes the balls of his hands up under the glasses, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “If I have to hear that Metallica album one more time, Foggy, I swear to god.”

“Don’t want to ride the lightning?”

Matt gives him a look. “At 5AM? Take a guess.”

Foggy tosses up his hands. “Fine, fine. Hey, I’m not the one who made you late, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah no, I know.” He reaches out to the desk, feeling for a laptop. It meets his fingers and he snaps it open, pulling it in front of him. “Sorry. Again.”

He can feel Foggy watching him still, even as the keyboard lights up under his fingers. “You know,” Foggy starts slowly, starting to look through his own papers. “They call people that in the army. It’s a military thing.”

“Call people what?”

Foggy glances back at him. “Ma’am.”

Matt pauses. “They do. Don’t they?”

Foggy moves one stack of papers across the table next to his own computer. “You don’t think that’s it, do you?”

“What?” Matt let’s his fingers trace over the top of the folders, finding his way. “This new case?”

Foggy shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe. Could be. Right?”

Matt finds what he was looking for. He slides the statement that’s become all too familiar in the past few days into his hands, running fingers across the words. _“Like I said, I didn’t care where the shots went. I just shot and hoped it was enough. But it wasn’t. And here I am. So that’s what I got to say.”_

Matt sighs, leaning back in his seat. “Remind me why we’re doing this again?”

Foggy seems almost as tired as he feels. “Because we’re straight up morons with hearts of solid gold.”

“We getting that printed on the business cards?”

“Might as well let people know what they’re signing up for.”

Matt hadn’t known what they were signing up for. Not with this one, not by a long shot. They were dragged in so easily, just like all the others. A girl sitting patient and rooted by their door, waiting for them to come in, clutching a file to her chest like some precious thing. Just a file, filled with old pictures of her and her sister, the sister’s service records, hand scribbled memories of phone calls and notes left behind, everything, anything: a life cut apart and pasted together again, carefully summed up and placed into one slim manilla folder. The girl had pushed it into his hands awkwardly, buttoning it all up with a: _“Please. She’s going to ruin her life. Whatever she has left of it. Please, you have to help.”_

“You think we’re getting a reputation?” Matt asks.

“For what?”

“Being straight up morons.”

Foggy let’s out half a laugh. “Yeah. Guaranteed.” He tosses down the folder in his hands. “So what? You want to call up the girl. Tell her we’re just going to let her sister tell the D.A. office and their plea deals to fuck off? Let her land herself in prison for the rest of her life?”

Matt smiles. “Know what they say about Catholics.”

“They’ve got a thing for bruised knees?”

Matt pulls a fresh stack of papers into his lap. “Gluttons for punishment.”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

Matt flicks open the top file. “You know, normally the client wants us to keep them _out_ of jail.”

“Yeah,” Foggy snorts, “lucky us.”

“You talked to her again?”

“I talked _at_ her again. I don’t think she likes me. She looks at my hair like it’s going to jump on the table and try to snake up her arm or something.”

“I have my own concerns.”

“Hey!” Foggy shoots back. “I use _two_ conditioners, alright? It doesn’t get classier than that. Little girls in Sweden to go bed every night praying for hair like this.”

Matt can’t help smiling. “You told her their latest offer?”

Fogy sighs. “I told her. Got nothing. Bupkis.”

“Did you sell it?”

He can feel Foggy’s exasperated expression. “Yes, Matt, I sold it, alright? With a nice bow on top, chocolates on the side, and a big helping of ‘it’s really not going to get any better than this’.”

“And bupkis, huh?”

Foggy stands, pacing across towards the window. “I don’t know. It’s…. What are we supposed to do? She _wants_ to go to prison, Matt. She told us she did. It’s the D.A. that wants her to take a deal, them and her sister. But they’re not our clients. She is. Should we just listen to her? Let her go to jail for exactly as long as she wants.”

“As in forever?”

Foggy leans against the window jam. “Yeah. Right.” He looks over his shoulder. “So this is what we do now? Help people who don’t want it?”

“It’s what we’re doing today.”

“Cause we’re gluttons for punishment?”

Matt grins. “That’s right.”

“Well,” Foggy turns back from the window. “The good news is so is our client. So at least we’ve got that in common.” 

“Then what’s next?” Matt leans back in his chair. “She told her sister she’d wait two weeks before submitting herself to sentencing, right?”

“And that was two days ago.”

“So we still have time to convince her she should take the deal.”

“ _How_ ,” Foggy insists. “You didn’t see her yesterday, Matt. She needs a therapist. A good one. For like, at least three years, _if_ they’re really on top of their game. We’re not the right ones for this.”

“We’re the only ones for this,” Matt says firmly. “Look, I know, it’s a challenge, and yeah, you’re probably right. But she signed her life away for this country, for our lives, the least we can do is sign away two weeks for her’s. Two weeks to try and see what happens. And if we can do it we’re giving someone back a life to live.”

He can feel Foggy staring back at him, into the dark red circles of the glasses. “You sure she deserves it?”

Matt wets his lips, thinking for a moment. “No. I’m not. But there are some things everyone deserves.”

“Like what?”

Matt stares back at him. “A chance at forgiveness.”

It turns into a long morning, and an even longer afternoon. It’s pointless for them to go back down to the station without at least something new to bring to the table. They can take a day, even two, make sure they’re ready to give it the best shot they can. And who knows? Maybe staring at prison walls without visitors for a day or two would help them make the case that it isn’t exactly the most thrilling way to spend the rest of your life. 

Josie’s is ready and waiting for them when they need it, just like it always is. It’s finally warm enough that they can leave the door open, spring breeze making it two feet inside before they’re snuffed out in the smell of dried booze and stale sweat. 

He and Foggy find relatively dry seats at the bar and order, like they always have to; even if Josie must know their drinks by now, she’d never let them know it. Matt listens to the hum of the drunken conversation, the clack of billiards, the buzz of the neon lights. He’s always wondered what color the lights are, but he’s never quite wanted to ask. It’s nice to try and imagine, and the sound almost paints the picture for him: heady cheap glare, red, or orange, or green, catching on the spotted glasses, the thick lacquered table, the grimy puddles outside. He’d guess red. He’s almost positive.

They’re two drinks in when the gaggle of giggles, plastic tiaras, and belted demands for martinis stumbles through the door. How a bachelorette party made it into Josie’s completely beats him, but it only takes a few more drinks before an apparently fearless bridesmaid takes command of the jukebox. 

He and Foggy laugh into their third beers as the sound of every regular groaning escalates and yet another Beyonce track comes blasting out of the speakers. 

“Can’t you kick them out, Jos?” one man grumbles a few seats down.

“What for?” Josie growls back. “Don’t you think I get sick of looking at you sorry shits every day? I could use a goddamn break.”

Matt lifts his glass in her direction with a grin. He doesn’t have to see to know she completely ignores him. 

“Um, hell-loo?” a voice suddenly sounds at his elbow. Foggy elbows his ribs hard and Matt turns.

“Uh, hey?” Matt answers, wincing as he works the pain out of his side. They must be good looking, Foggy has a built in snap reflex when attractive women surprise him, and Matt’s ribs often pay the price. He’s almost positive it’s “they”, two, maybe three from what he can tell, with more of the gang still towards the back, draining another pitcher of beer and screaming at the billiard table.

“So… What’re you guys up to?” The same girl asks, more slur than anything else. 

Foggy shrugs, “Not too much.” Matt can tell he’s beaming.

Another girl leans heavily onto the bar next to them. “You two. You.” He thinks she’s pointing. “You should come dance.”

“Come dance?” Matt repeats.

“That,” Foggy calls, lifting his glass in triumph, “is an _excellent_ idea!”

“ _See_!” the girl on the bar just about yells, slapping her friend’s arm. “It wasn’t ‘stupid Tracy’ to ask. It was _smart_ Tracy to ask. Smartest. Hands down.”

Foggy’s already clambering to his feet, following them back to the group as Tracy continues to assert her obvious superiority. But one of the girls is still lingering. Matt can feel her watching him. 

“I didn’t—“ she starts, skeptically, and he knows the tone before she even starts. He can feel the way she’s looking at him. He’s felt it every day of his life. “I didn’t want,” she continues. “I mean, you don’t have to. If you don’t want to. If it’s,” and there’s the predictable confused guilt slipping into her tone, “if it’s… I don’t know, if you don’t want to.”

Matt puts on the practiced smile: easy, natural, friendly. He learned that smile when he was fifteen, learned that it hid that little scratch of fury in his chest anytime someone implied that he needed permission to not do something he wasn’t comfortable with. 

“I’d love to dance,” he says, smile charming and utterly disarming, “thanks for asking.”

He can feel the girl’s relief washing over her. By the time they get to the group the party is ordering yet another set of tequila shots. It doesn’t take too much encouragement for him and Foggy to join in, and when Matt feels the tentative slide of a lime against his lower lip he bites down with a grin.

“Wait, wait, waitwaitwait—“ a girl’s voice calls against the music and the din of the bar. He knows that tone, too; it’s the tone of someone who has an excellent drunken idea. “I know _exactly_ , exactly! What we need.” Matt can hear the bride-to-be protesting behind her, but it doesn’t seem to be doing any good.

He feels a sturdy female hand grab his shoulder, turning him about-face with authority. 

“Whoa, hey there.” He hears Foggy call, sounding like he’s getting the same treatment.

“Just hold still for a second,” the girl’s voice says. It’s quieter, closer to his cheek. Matt listens, holding still. He feels something slide down around his head, into his hair. It feels like a plastic band. He lifts tentative fingers up. There’s two little horns sticking out of his hair.

He snorts. “Perfect.”

“Oh come on!” Foggy calls. “I get the halo? How is that fair?”

“It’s _exactly_ fair,” the girl slurs with a thick smile, “trust me. See, Shay, you’ve got one for each shoulder now. All set.”

The bride-to-be must be smothering her embarrassment into her drink based on sound of gurgling laughter. He can hear Foggy pulled back into the group. Someone’s turning the tequila bottle over for another round. The warmth of a body slips closer to his side. 

“What’d you think?” It’s a soft voice, heady with booze and excitement and the crowded air of the bar. “Can I dance with the devil?”

Matt tilts his head just slightly in her direction, turning his cheek enough to feel her breath as a hand slips around his arm. “I don’t know, bit risky.”

He can hear the girl smile, hand tightening pleasantly against his arm. “I’ll take it.”

It’s at least one more shot and half another Beyonce album before they start stumbling towards the door. And god, he really shouldn’t be dancing when he’s this drunk. At least he’s not making a spectacle of himself for too long. The girl, Christa, is already asking him how far his place is, hand sliding up between his jacket and shirt in a teasing way as she holds firmly onto his arm and they head for the door. Foggy must catch sight of them because Matt thinks he hears him call something over the sound of pop-music and disgruntled regulars. But he can’t quite hear him. Matt turns to call back. He turns too fast, and with a little tickle of panic, loses his footing. 

Christa lets out a shocked squeal, completely letting go of his arm in her surprise. Matt braces, ready for the crack of the floor on his knees but it doesn’t come. Someone’s already caught him. 

There’s a thick hand around his upper arm, a hand that’s lifting him back upright very easily. Matt realizes through the tipsy haze he’s grabbed onto an equally solid shoulder to support himself. He gets his footing again, muttering quick apologies the entire time. 

“Easy there,” a deep voice says.

Matt blinks. The smell hits him: strong coffee, gun cleaner, and something else.

Matt takes a stumbling step back, instantly dropping the grip he had on the man’s shoulder. 

“Hey! Matt!” Foggy’s yelling from the back. “You alright?”

And god isn’t this is perfect, just perfect. He can hear the man’s grin, smug and lopsided where he’s sitting at the bar. “Yeah, Red, you alright?”

Red? That’s new.

“Shit.” Fuck. The fucking horns. Fuck. Fuck. Matt runs a hand quickly through his hair, shoving the things off.

“Oh no!” Christa cries plaintively from behind him. “They matched your glasses! They’re too cute!”

“Oh yeah,” the rough voice echoes with that self-satisfied smile, “too cute.”

“Come on,” Matt says, getting Christa’s arm again and stumbles towards the door. He’s not blushing. Definitely not. They can’t exit fast enough and as soon as they’re out, the bright air of spring nights floods around him. 

He takes a good deep breath, trying not to feel so dizzy. He focuses on the smells: rain waiting just around the corner, the cart selling roasted nuts three blocks down, fresh heady mulch on the park greenery two blocks behind them. He lets his breath out again, feeling the drunken fog wrap back around him in a comfortable, gauzy sort of way. 

Christa’s still laughing, more to herself than anyone else it sounds like. Matt turns in the right direction, heading for his apartment and she turns with him. She lifts herself up against his arm. “I’m sorry I let go. I’m terrible. Christ, just, that’s so bad. So bad. I shouldn’t have let go. I don’t know why I did. Reflex. Butterfingers.”

“That’s alright,” Matt says.

“But hey! You’re alright! I wish there were big ol’ jacked dudes around every time I tripped on the subway, christ. I trip _a lot_ , by the way, even when I’m not tequila-faced.” She laughs again and he smiles along with her. “Did you know that guy? The one with better reflexes than me? He looked like he knew you? You know him?”

Matt shakes his head. “He’s just my neighbor.”

“Man,” Christa reflects. “Lucky you.”

“Yeah,” Matt grumbles. “Lucky me.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Come on, Matt,” Foggy insists. “It wasn’t _that_ bad.”

“Were you not there?” Matt says. “Because I was, and I remember it being pretty bad. Pretty, very, definitely bad.”

“You’re making too big a deal out of it,” Foggy says. “Look, we finally got all this together. You’re really not going down the station because, what? Some cop might call you nicknames?”

“I didn’t say I’m not going,” Matt says. “I’m going. But I don’t have to like the idea very much, alright?”

“Come on, champ,” Foggy says brightly, “strap on those martyr shoes and get after it.”

Matt raises and eyebrow. “‘Martyr shoes’.”

“Yeah,” Foggy tries, self deprecating smile growing, “from Nike.”

“Hilarious.”

“Come on, Matt,” Foggy leans back in his seat. “You’re _really_ complaining over this? Tripping on your way home with the hottest girl in the bar and getting caught by the hottest dude in the bar? This is the life you’re gonna give me shit about?”

“Alright, alright—”

“No, seriously, seriously, cause I want to be perfectly clear on that. How do you even do that anyways? Every time. _Every time_ with the best looking—“

“I got it, alright,” Matt says quickly. “My life doesn’t suck. You made your point.”

“Damn right,” Foggy says firmly. He stands, gathering up the neat stack of files they narrowed the entire table down to. “So get down there. Kick some ass.”

Matt sighs. “You got it, coach.”

The taxi drops him right in front of the station. He steps out onto the sidewalk, the sense of place pouring in from every side: the slamming of cruiser doors, laughter as officers head inside, exhausted one-night inmates stumbling on their way back home. There’s a pair of trees out front, on either side of the doors. It smells like they’ve blossomed, plum-trees he thinks, or something close to that. 

Matt adjusts his tie with a twist of his neck. God, he really isn’t looking forward to this. When he decided he would be a lawyer he really didn’t see obnoxious cop nick-names as one of the downsides. Well, that or having clients who could care less if you helped them or not. Ah well, first time for everything. He adjusts his grip on his cane and heads for the front doors.

The feeling of the police station closes in around him: conditioned institutional air, tile floors, cheap coffee, fluorescent overheads buzzing despite the warm sunlight from the windows on the east side of the building.

Matt places his hands on the familiar smooth surface of the front desk. “I’m here to see my client, Carla Ruiz.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” the desk officer answers, “just hold on.”

He recognizes the woman’s voice. She’s there on Tuesdays. Tired but responsive enough all the same. “Thank you, Officer Jackson.”

She stops, obviously surprised, but shakes her head and keeps heading back into the precinct. It doesn’t take long for him to be escorted through the building toward the holding cells. He stays alert, trying to catch a sense of any sign, but there’s just too much going on in the station to pin-point much that’s more than a few meters away. But they get further and further through and no one shoves past him with smug jabs or whistles after him, so maybe he can go ahead and call this one a win.

The sounds of the station filter away in layers as they pass through a series of doors, leaving only the quiet, cooler sounds that always slide between bars of steel and concrete floors.

“Here you go,” the officer says as Matt hears the metal doors slide open. He steps inside and they slide shut behind him again. There’s someone in the room already. It’s easy enough to find his chair. There’s not exactly a bounty of interior decoration in these places.

“Hello,” Matt says as he sits.

“Yeah,” the girl sitting across the table answers. He can hear the rumple of her cotton jumpsuit, her arms crossed firmly in front of her chest as she leans back.

“Do you remember me?” Matt asks. “Your sister hired us to—“

“I know why she hired you. I said I’d give her two weeks before I pleaded. That’s all. And I already talked to your friend and told him what was what. You know, the one with the Jodie Foster haircut.”

“Well, today I’m asking you to talk to me.”

She doesn’t answer, he can hear the bottoms of her standard-issue canvas shoes move just slightly against the concrete of the floor.

“Could you tell me again,” Matt says, “in your own words, what happened?”

“I’ve told you. I’ve told everyone. Feels like a dozen times already. I’m sick of it.”

“Then, maybe I could tell you?”

“You can do whatever the hell you want with your time, man, it’s yours to fucking waste.”

Matt unsnaps the seal on his briefcase, pulling out several files. “You served overseas, right? Two tours?”

“You lawyers always ask questions you know the answers to?”

“And you got back three years ago. Why did you decided to…?” he trails, unsure of how to put it exactly.

“Throw my life away?” she asks with a sneer.

“Not how I was going to put it.”

“Why not? It’s what you mean, right? That’s what they call it.”

“You joined a gang.”

“Look, you might not get this, with your little briefcase there and your expensive-ass degree, but the options for a high school dropout who doesn’t have what you’d exactly call a well-rounded resume aren’t all that promising.”

“You made a choice.”

“Damn right. Never said I didn’t.”

“Your sister says it was a friend of yours who brought you in, gave you this, well, opportunity. Oliver Sosa. The D.A. has him on record as one of the leading players in the cocaine market locally. That is, he was, until this incident.”

She’s quiet. Unmoving. He can feel the tightness of her expression.

“I see that you called him ‘Ollie’ in your initial statement. It seems you two were friends.”

Silence. Again.

Matt pushes the files aside. He looks at where he thinks she must be through the dark red circles of his glasses. “I’m sorry that you lost him.”

“Fuck your ‘sorry’!” she suddenly snaps. “You’re not sorry. None of them are. He was just drug-dealing trash right? Fucking up this lovely little neighborhood. You’re not sorry, so don’t act like it.”

“I’m sorry you lost someone who mattered to you.”

“Why the hell would you be sorry? I don’t mean nothing to you. Why are you still here anyways? I’m going to plead guilty. To everything. Because I am guilty. So stop wasting your time.”

“The D.A. wants to offer you a deal.”

“I know. And you know I told them to shove it.”

Matt leans forward against the table again, pausing before continuing. “We’ve been looking at the records. Carefully. From what we can see you weren’t responsible for any of the civilian injuries on the street that day when the shooting broke out.”

“I _have_ shot people,” she says firmly. “In this city. On that day.”

“Not civilians, though. Dealers. Gang-members.”

“That makes them not people?”

Matt sighs. “Look, you want to punish yourself, fine, do that, but if you want to pay for what you’ve done, why not give the D.A. something to work with? Why not give them some names, something they can use? Why not… atone?”

“‘Atone’,” the girl repeats. “Yeah, I remember that. From church, yeah? When I was little with pigtails and Sunday shoes. Well, maybe I don’t have nothing to atone for? Maybe I just don’t care.”

“Then why let yourself get locked away? If you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, why plead guilty at all?”

He can feel her watching him, eyes steady. “I did something wrong. That don’t mean I’m going to waste my energy try to patch up something already too full of holes to float.”

“You could try. Never know, it might make a difference.”

“Yeah, well, what can I say? Guess it’s not my difference to make.”

That’s about as much as he manages to get. He gives it another half an hour before she stops speaking to him altogether. At least he’s improving on Foggy’s last trip. Foggy said he just managed to get a dozen words before she shut down. 

Matt heads back along the tiled corridor behind the footsteps of the officer. He finds himself listening carefully as they move through the main offices. The bustle of the station is the usual cacophony: the drip-drip of coffee machines, shuffling papers on crowded desks, overworked office chairs scooting against tile floors. Voices filter in-between the rest, tired laughter, close over-caffeinated arguments, apathetic reports. He listens closer, almost catching something, a rough grate of a voice just, barely…

“We’re never gonna get all this shit done.”

Another voice. A woman’s voice. “Yeah, well complaining isn’t helping anything.” 

“I’ve got shit I’m supposed to do tonight,” the rough voice says, “they just keep dropping these reports off on our desk and that piece of work back in the cells isn’t even sorry.”

“You don’t know that,” the woman says. “I think she is sorry.”

“Not if that lawyer has anything to do with it.”

“Hey! Those guys are doing important work around here. Seriously.”

“Yeah, I don’t know about…,” the rough voice trails.

Matt feels eyes catch along his.

“Frank?” the woman’s voice says. “Frank… what the hell are you looking at?”

“Here you go, councilor,” Officer Jackson’s voice breaks through.

“Right,” Matt catches himself, snapping his attention back to the front. The station door is open in front of him. “Thank you.”

It’s past seven by the time he gets back from the office. Not too bad all considered; hell, he might even get a decent night’s sleep, at least until the 5AM metal show kicks off next door.

He locks the front door of the building behind him as he turns to the stairs. Really the station visit wasn’t so bad all around, was it? He didn’t have to listen to an entire precinct of cops calling him names, and he at least managed to get something out of the client. Not much, but it’s a start.

He turns up the final flight of stairs to his floor. Then stops. There’s people on the landing. He keeps heading up. They’re watching him, whoever they are. He gets to the landing with a soft tap of his cane. He could just turn, go right to his door. But there’s never anyone waiting here, and it’s just them on this level….

“Uh,” he starts, “hello?”

“Hi,” a voice answers. It’s younger than he was expecting. A girl’s voice, she doesn’t sound any older than thirteen.

“Are you, uh, waiting for someone?” Matt asks.

“You care?” It’s a second voice, even younger, but this one sounds like a boy.

“Hey,” Matt shrugs, “just asking.”

The boy’s voice turns sullen, spinning back towards the girl. “Text him again, Lisa.”

“Shut up, Junior. It’s not going to make a difference.”

“You could _try_.”

“You text him if you care so much, jesus,” the girl snaps back.

“Waiting for someone?” Matt asks.

“It’s fine,” the girl says defensively, “we’re fine.”

“Just… hanging out in the hallway?”

“Got a problem with that, perv?” the boy says.

Matt holds up his hands. “Fine, fine.” He unlocks his apartment door and lets it shut behind him. Great. Now he gets to spend the night listening for the sound of two kids being abducted out of the hallway.

He’s barely had time to get into sweats and start dinner when he hears a knock at the door. He slides his glasses over his nose before he opens it.

“Sorry.” It’s the girl’s voice again.

Matt frowns. “What?”

He can hear her brother kicking the edge of his doorjam lightly, hands likely shoved deep in his pockets. 

“Our dad’s late,” she says bitterly. “He says he can’t leave the station yet. He doesn’t know when he can get back.”

“Your dad,” Matt repeats.

“He didn’t want us waiting in the hall,” the girl says. “I told him it was fine but he doesn’t listen, like ever. He said we should ask to come in. If we wanted.”

“He did?” Matt asks, honestly shocked. 

The boy gives an unnecessarily dramatic sigh.

“He said you aren’t a perv,” the girl says frankly. “Just a lawyer.”

Matt raises his eyebrows. “High praise.”

The boy turns his face up towards Matt’s. “Do you have food?”

“Uh,” he blinks. “Sure, yeah sure, there’s food.”

“Great,” the boy squeezes past him into the apartment. Matt steps back and the girl wafts in after him. Funny. There’s something familiar in the scent, something like her dad. It’s not the coffee, and certainly not the gun cleaner. But something else he can’t quite place.

“Make yourselves at home, I guess,” Matt says, shuffling in his socks back into the apartment.

“Wow! Look at that!” The boy - Junior his sister had said - calls out. He sounds like he’s facing the windows, the glaring neon screens pouring liquid light into the apartment.

“How do you sleep?” the girl asks and then quickly corrects herself. “Oh, yeah, right.”

“Yeah, I hear it’s pretty bright. I also hear my furniture isn’t great and I don’t actually have that much invested in interior design, so—“

“Seriously,” the girl says. “It looks like some busted safe house in here, like from those spy movies.”

Matt moves back into the kitchen. He can smell the noodles boiling on the stove and adds another box to the water. Another box should do it right? How much do kids actually eat?

Someone sits down on one of the stools opposite the stove. He’s guessing the girl.

“Lisa?” he tries. “That’s your name?”

“Yeah,” she answers. She’s watching him carefully, curiously. “What’s yours?”

He tosses the box towards the recycling, and just his luck he makes the shot. “Matt.”

The girl sounds like she’s rolled her eyes. “Everyone’s named Matt. There’s four Matt’s in my class.”

“Sorry to be a disappointment,” he says.

It sounds like Junior’s collapsed on the couch further out in the living room, probably watching the advertisements float past the windows.

He can still feel the girl watching, but he doesn’t mind it. There’s an honesty to the way she’s looking, as though she’s not just looking because she thinks he can’t tell. Kids often look at him like that, and it’s always better than the stolen self-conscious glances he knows adults give him by the dozen daily.

“What are you making?” Junior’s voice calls.

“Spaghetti.”

“Do you have TV?”

“Yes, but no cable. The remote’s on the table.”

“Netflix?”

“God, Junior, just like, chill out would you?” Lisa calls back to him.

Junior mimics her words right back. He found the remote. The TV clicks to life.

Matt stirs the pasta, salty steam pushing into his face, likely fogging his glasses right up.

“You can ask,” Matt says after a moment.

Lisa leans forward against the counter. “Yeah?”

“Sure. Why not?”

She stares at him for a moment before speaking. “What’s it like?”

He doesn’t have to ask what she means. “Well,” he starts, “I have to have guide stitches sewn into my clothes so I know which ones match.”

He thinks she’s smiling. “That’s wild.”

“And I get to sit wherever I want on the subway.”

“Did you ever, I mean could you ever—?“

“I used to be able to see.”

“When did it happen?” He’s got her now he can tell; her attention is fixed even if her tone is still the unimpressed tenor of someone on the edge of the diving board into the clinical apathy of a teenager. 

“I was eight. There was a chemical spill in the street, a car accident.”

“Do you… remember? I mean, what stuff looks like?”

Matt smiles. “What sort of stuff?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know… purple? Do you remember purple?”

It’s a smart question for a kid her age. “Yeah, mostly. Sometimes things get mixed up, but for the most part, I remember.”

She’s quiet for a moment. Junior’s found something on the TV that sounds like a car show with British accents. Matt pulls the pasta off the stove. The strainer’s already waiting in the sink, steam billowing as he pours. 

“What’s the worst part?” she asks, voice quieter than before.

Matt puts the pan back on the stove. “You really want to know?”

“Yeah,” she answers.

He turns towards her. “Honestly, feeling everyone ask themselves that question every time they see me.”

“You mean… them feeling bad for you?”

“Not for me, for it, for themselves really. They’re thinking about their lives and what they would miss most. You can feel that: pity, fear. It makes people talk to me sometimes like they’re walking on eggshells. And the truth is I hate that.”

She smiles. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I mean, anytime anyone brings up war or soldiers or even stupid things like Father’s Day. That’s a dumb holiday by the way. I remember when Dad was still over there, and we had to make things for it in school, stupid stuff like paper flowers and toolboxes with popsicle sticks, I remember how the teacher looked at me. I hated that.”

“Your dad was in the army?”

“He’s a marine,” she says, and suddenly there’s a little shine in her voice, under the rest.

“He’s a cop now, right?” 

She raises an eyebrow. “You don’t know that? I thought you were friends.”

Matt laughs. “Uh, friends might be a bit of a stretch.”

“But he told us to ask you if we could wait here,” she says, voice starting to sound angry all over again.

Matt tries to back pedal, “No, I mean, we’re really neighbors, friends, neighbors…. And we know each other from the precinct, where he works. I don’t know if he’d exactly call us ‘friends’, though.” And damn it, cooking spaghetti while lying to canny twelve-year-olds wasn’t exactly how he planned to spend his evening.

“Honestly, I don’t think he even _has_ any friends,” she says spitefully. “I mean he has his partner, and she’s cool, but that’s it. He’s always just working, or, I don’t know, just sitting around alone probably.”

Matt can’t help smiling at the sense of upper hand he’s getting here. “Ah well, you know sitting around alone can be pretty good.”

She shrugs. “I guess. Mom thinks he’s ‘brooding’.”

“Then they’re… when did they split up?”

“Two years ago. Maybe. A year after he came home or something like that.”

Matt makes an affirming sound. Part of him is ready to subtly drill this girl for intel until he feels he has ample ammo to fend off any future attacks, but he resists. Barely.

“Alright,” he sets down three plates. “Ready?” 

It’s close to midnight when a loud knock on the door jerks Matt awake where he’d fallen asleep in the arm chair. He blinks a few times, trying to get his glasses back in place as whoever it is knocks again.

The kids are still sound asleep on the couch, the British car show murmuring away on the television.

Matt finds his feet and makes it to the door, unlocking it just as another knock comes in hard. 

The man on the other side of the door sounds out of breath. “Hey.”

Matt clears his throat. “Uh, hi.”

“Yeah,” Frank doesn’t seem to quite know what to say. He sounds exhausted in more ways than one. “Can, I, uh—?”

Matt takes a step back and Frank steps into the apartment. The smell of him wafts past Matt, heavy and familiar. He follows him into the living room. It sounds like Lisa managed to get to her feet.

“Hey -- hey, honey,” Frank’s voice mutters, low and close. He wraps one arm around her shoulders, pulling her close and kissing her head.

She blinks blearily. “What time is it?” 

“Bedtime,” he answers, “come on, let’s hit it.”

He leans over the couch, and apparently as easy as anything, scoops up his son in his arms to carry him across the hall. But it doesn’t last long. Junior squirms in protest as soon as he’s awake enough. 

“Dad, christ, put me down, jesus.”

And apparently he does, the sound of sneakers squeaking as they hit the floor of the apartment. Matt can almost feel the kid’s cheeks heating up in embarrassment as he heads for the door himself.

“I’m eleven, I don’t need you to carry me. I can walk, alright?”

Frank runs a hand through his own hair. It sounds very short. “Yeah, alright, alright.”

The entire mismatched group heads for the door and Matt follows, ready to hit his own mattress and process this properly when he has any kind of energy.

“Night,” he calls, swinging the door shut after them.

A hand catches it before it shuts.

“Hey,” Frank’s voice calls.

Matt looks up.

“Thanks.” And with that Frank pulls the door the rest of the way shut himself before Matt can answer.

Matt blinks at the closed door in front of his face. “Yeah. No problem.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Made a mix! Going to try out 8Tracks fancy new embed code: 
> 
> [Springtime in Hell's Kitchen](http://8tracks.com/fortinbrasftw/springtime-in-hell-s-kitchen?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) from [FortinbrasFTW](http://8tracks.com/fortinbrasftw?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) on [8tracks Radio](http://8tracks.com?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button).

The punch knocks him back before he’s ready for it. Matt shakes his head quickly, the floor of the ring familiar and affirming under the bounce of his feet.

“Come on, Matty, don’t be stupid,” the familiar voice of Tony roars from the ropes. “Fuckin’ embarrassing me over here.”

Matt smiles, the tinge of blood lighting up his tongue.

“Just focus, yeah? Fuckin’ focus.”

“Lot easier to focus without you running your mouth,” Matt shouts back. But he listens all the same.

He’s ready this time. The punch slices through the air. He dodges, right and down. His fist snaps, right into the solar plexus opposite. He feels the air go out of his opponent’s stomach with one tight gust. A foot slides back, trying to recover from the hit. It’s an opening. Matt drops down, snapping up again to his left. He lets the punch hit home, right to the jaw. Again. Then again.

“There yah go,” Tony spits.

Matt feels the breath turning to fire in his lungs. His opponent takes a step back. Matt tenses his stomach in anticipation, the other man’s blow hitting hard all the same. The man opposite is close to the ropes. Matt knows that damn ring better than the layout of his own apartment. Another punch lands to Matt’s gut, then the side of of his head, making his ear ring like a bastard.

But it’s desperate, floundering. He feints to the left, then drops to the right. He gets his footing, snaps his shoulder back, and brings it home as hard as he can.

His opponent staggers, bouncing back into the ropes with a groaning gasp. Matt stays where he is, feet planted, chest rising and falling quickly as he holds onto that fire, guiltily praying he’s given an excuse to keep it burning.

But the man on the ropes shakes his head. “I’m done, man. Fuck.” He spits. “You got it, shit. I’m done.”

“There, took yah fuckin’ long enough,” Tony’s says as he steps back from the ropes.

Matt shakes his head, trying to slow down his breathing. It’s harder than it should be to stop, but he always manages to all the same. He takes a longer deeper inhale and lets it out again slowly, pulling off a glove and reaching a hand down.

“Thanks,” the other guy sighs, wrapping his taped hand around Matt’s, letting him pull him to his feet.

“Good bout,” Matt breathes.

“Yeah,” the other smiles, “yeah, no shit. Hey, give me another year with that asshole,” he jerks his head towards Tony, “maybe I’ll get you one of these days.”

“Yeah,” Matt smirks, “maybe.”

He pulls a towel off the side of the ring, rubbing down his face. He needed this today. Hell, he needs it most days. There was always something about escaping down here, to the smells and sounds that were more familiar than anything else in the city. It means a lot, meant a lot, especially in high school, when he felt like there was almost nothing he could control. He could come down here after class everyday, with Tony and guys who told stories about his dad, who didn’t look at him like he was a Lifetime Original movie.

There’s probably something to that; he’s probably still coming down here when there’s things he feels he can’t control. Like a client who still won’t give them a chance, or a D.A. who’s starting to wondering if two weeks is going to do any good after all.

Matt braces against the elastic give of the ropes, taking a long pull off the water bottle in his hands. He squirts just enough into his face to be a relief, rubbing a hand through his hair. He can feel the fight slipping away from his limbs, breathing slowing down to normal again.

“Man, Red,” a rough voice calls, “I gotta say, I’ve seen some wild shit but that, that right there, that’s gotta be up there.”

Matt’s head snaps up. The voice had come from across the gym, its owner leaning against the cement walls just back from the ring.

Matt ducks under the ropes, hopping down to the floor. “You know, it’s a members-only gym.”

“I don’t know, gym’s kinda a strong word for it,” the deep voice says. “Didn’t think places like this even existed, I mean outside of movie montages.”

Matt channels his irritation into untwisting the wraps from his knuckles. “Seriously, how did you get in?”

“Got a badge. Remember?”

Matt doesn’t look at him; he’s feeling for where he left his glasses. He finds them, pushing them onto his nose as he hears the heavy steps move towards him.

Matt frowns, finally facing him properly. “How did you know I go here?”

Frank shrugs. “Followed you.”

Matt stares. “You _followed_ me?”

“Yeah,” he answers, as though that’s the most normal thing in the world.

“You don’t,” Matt tightens his jaw, trying to focus, “you don’t see _anything_ wrong with that?”

Frank’s quiet for a moment, then, suddenly, Matt feels an outstretched hand offered into the space between them.

“Frank,” Frank says.

Matt doesn’t move. “Excuse me?”

Irritation tightens just enough to notice in the other man’s voice. “My name. It’s Frank. Frank Castle.”

Matt doesn’t move for a moment, then, finally, he takes the outstretched hand. “Right, yeah, I uh, I know.” The hand closes around Matt’s firmly with one quick squeeze before dropping it again. Matt flexes his hand at his side, working the stiffness out where he’s pulled the tape free.

“Can I ask you something, Red?” He seems closer now, sounding as though he’s easing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. The smell of him, of that apartment, filters in with the old comfortable scent of the gym in a way that’s oddly fitting.

“My name is Matt.”

“That a yes?”

Matt sighs, leaning back to half-sit against the ring. He tosses the rolled up wraps to one side. “If you get one do I get one?”

“What is this? Fucking truth or dare?”

“Hey, you’re the one who asked,” Matt says.

“Look, man, if you wanna ask me something you can just fucking ask alright? I know it’s hard to get anything done with you people without playing twenty-questions, but I’d rather not waste my damn time.”

“Fine,” Matt bristles. “Why did you follow me?”

He feels Frank’s jaw tighten for a moment. “You did me a favor, alright. The other night. I know that. I wanted you to know I know that.”

Matt blinks. “Uh, it’s fine. Really. Not a problem.”

It feels like Frank gives his head half a shake. “Nah, it was - shit - it was a good thing to do, alright? Could have told me to go fuck myself, but you didn’t. So I appreciate it. Alright?”

“Yeah, well,” Matt shrugs, “not exactly in the habit of telling twelve-year-olds to go fuck themselves.”

“Thirteen,” Frank corrects.

“What?”

“She’s thirteen. Lisa.”

“Oh, right.”

Frank’s quiet again, but he doesn’t walk away. Matt can almost hear wheels churning inside his head.

“Why’d you tell them they could ask to come inside?” Matt hears himself asks.

Frank looks up. “What’s that?”

“I was just, well, surprised, honestly. You don’t seem to like me that much, but you told them they could trust me. Or, at least enough to feed them over-cooked spaghetti.” He focuses, listening as closely as he can, hoping it doesn’t seem like it. “Why?”

Frank looks back at him. “My partner, she said you were a good guy. Said she knows the work you do. She said you’re worth trusting. And I trust her.”

“Well,” Matt says, “I guess I owe her a thank-you.”

“For what?” Frank let’s out a gruff laugh, “getting your ass stuck with babysitting duty?”

“Ah, come on,” Matt says, “they’re too old for baby-sitting.”

“Yeah,” Frank’s voice drops, quieter, lower, “yeah, I guess they are, huh?”

It sounds like two new contenders are climbing into the ring behind him. Tony’s clapping his hands, calling out to them as they start to circle each other.

Matt sighs. “Alright, well I should get—“

“Wanna get a drink?” Frank says suddenly. So suddenly Matt can’t help blinking.

“What’s that now?”

Frank clears his throat, adjusting his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “You did me a favor, alright, like I said. I can get you a drink. Even it up. Some of it at least.”

Matt frowns. He’s not exactly sure how to handle this. He doesn’t have a lot of practice in the bizarre masculine cliches and honor-codes that likely come in a neat little packages right along with a service record and a badge. The guys doesn’t even seem to like him, this is probably just his way of feeling like he’s checked his boxes and can go back to the regular routine of apathetic-asshole. The whole thing is obviously making him wildly uncomfortable, Matt can feel the tension ticking up by the second. But there’s something to that, isn’t there. Up until now he’s been the one forced into the uncomfortable corners.

Matt smiles small and comfortable. “Yeah. Sure. Drink sound good.”

Frank nods firmly. “Good.”

Matt stands up properly. “Let me just clean up, yeah?”

Frank makes some sound of affirmation, taking a few steps back towards the wall.

Matt heads past him, then stops. “Did you want to ask me something? Before?”

Frank’s mouth twitches against a smile. “Yeah.” He nods towards the ring. “How’d you do that?”

Matt smiles back. “How about this, you don’t make any Beyonce jokes when we get to Josie’s and I’ll tell you.”

“Christ, you just can’t stop that litigious bullshit from coming out of that smart-ass mouth, huh?”

Matt watches him patiently. “Deal?”

Frank meets his look. “Sure, Red, deal.”

 

Judging by the sound of the crowd when they squeeze through the door to Josie’s it’s closer to ten than nine. Matt hadn’t realized he’d stayed at the gym so late.

Frank gives his jacket one firm shake as the door swings shut behind them. It’s not quite raining outside, more of a thick mist than anything else, a thick mist that occasionally summons up enough gusto to call itself a sprinkle. Funny, Matt always feels like he has a better sense of things when they’re wet; maybe it’s just noisier, crisper, but it makes a difference, whatever it is. He can almost see the beads of moisture around the close shaved back of Frank’s neck, slipping slightly on the squared collar of his cargo jacket.

“So that’s it?” Frank asks. “That’s the secret? Practice?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Since I was twelve. Had to get exercise somehow.” Matt follows behind him. Frank seems to be weirdly good at clearing a path through the bar. The people just melt away in front of him, like some sort of reverse gravity. Frank grabs a seat at one of the tall tables just past the bar. Matt easily finds the free one, leaning his cane against the wall behind him.

Frank sighs, leaning back. The old chair creaks under the movement.

“Disappointed?” Matt asks.

Frank shrugs. “Shit, kinda.”

Matt smiles. “Honestly, the hard part was convincing other people that they could hit me.”

“Funny,” Frank says, “wouldn’t think you’d have any problem with that.”

Two beers hit their table. He didn’t even hear him order them. Frank grabs his, tipping it back. Matt follows suit.

“They seem nice by the way,” Matt says suddenly.

Frank looks in his direction. “Who?”

“Your kids. Lisa. Junior.”

Frank snorts. “Yeah. Nice. I’ll pass that along.”

“Alright, that’s not—“ Matt wets his lips. “Wrong word.”

“Thought you were supposed to be good at those. Isn’t that what those expensive degrees are for?”

“They’re smart,” Matt recovers. “The kids.”

“Yeah. well, they don’t get it from my side, believe me,” Frank frowns.

“They say what they mean,” Matt continues. “That’s… it’s refreshing.”

“Oh yeah? Don’t get a lot of sincerity in your line of work?”

“ _That,_ they must get from you.”

Frank cracks a lopsided smile. “Yeah, you’re probably right. You find that ‘refreshing’, huh? Gotta say, Red, you don’t seem all that refreshed when you come knocking at my door.”

Matt considers him for a moment. “You know, it’s funny, I just don’t think I’m used to it.”

“Used to what?”

“Bullies.”

Frank snorts. “That what I am? A bully?”

“I don’t know honestly. I never had a lot of experience with bullies.”

He can feel Frank watching him. “Seriously?”

“Uh, yeah,” Matt takes another drink. “Surprised?”

“Yeah I’m fucking surprised. Where’d you grow up? Canada?”

Matt laughs, the honest laugh that always seems to sneak out of him in a burst. “No, no, I grew up here. Went to school five blocks over. I just… no one ever picked on me, or teased me, or even, well, anything. They just…” he swallows, adjusting his grip on the cool bottle in his hands, “they didn’t do anything. It’s a different sort of thing. Pity. The pity I guess was always stronger than anything else. It just… silences. It shuts people down. It’s like they think you’re not even worth picking on. People think that bullies target the weak, and I guess that’s true, but there’s something about real weakness, unique, indisputable weakness that scares people more than they admit. They’re too scared to even get close to it. Growing up I don’t think people thought I was whole enough to pick on.” He shakes his head with a smile. “Know what the funny part is?”

“You wanted them to give you shit, to give you an excuse to throw it right back,” Frank answers smoothly.

“Yeah,” Matt smiles, surprised. “Yeah. I really, really did.”

“Yeah,” Frank mutters. He takes another sip of his beer.

“You, uh,” Matt starts again, hesitantly, “you don’t seem to…”

“Give a shit?”

“You could put it like that.”

Frank shrugs. “Why should I?”

Matt shrugs back. “Uh, no reason. I just, I’m not used to it, I guess. It’s surprising. That’s all.”

“Yeah, well, I saw enough friends get bits blown off of them only to come back to bullshit smiles and timid little excuses to get real sick of it real fast. Pity’s a fucking waste of time if you’re asking me.”

Matt considers that for a moment.

“Why don’t you have a dog?” Frank asks suddenly.

Matt turns. “A dog?”

“Yeah,” Frank says. “Not that you need one or anything, but you _could_ have a dog. I’d have a dog.”

Matt smiles. “Oh yeah?”

“Hell yeah. And you’d get to take it anywhere, you’d be allowed to take it _anywhere_. Man, that would be great.” Frank says wistfully.

“You know,” Matt says, “you could get a dog.”

“Wouldn’t be able to take it everywhere,” Frank says, “especially not work. And in case you didn’t notice, my hours can be a bitch. I wouldn’t want to do that to a dog. Just saying, if I was you, I’d have a dog.”

Matt takes another longer sip of beer; the cheap fizz of it stings the inside of his mouth a little where he took that one good hit. There’s still a copper taste against his tongue. The rain seems like it’s gotten harder outside, he can hear it above the muddled mess of voices bouncing around the walls: clinking glasses and boots sticking to floors. Frank taps a thumb idly against the side of his beer, gaze distant. Matt’s not sure what to make of it.

“Can I ask you something?” Matt asks.

“Red, I’m not a fucking judge; you don’t need permission.”

“You don’t like me. Do you?” Matt says firmly.

Frank sighs, shifting in his seat. “I’ve got some issues with the way you do what you do, alright?” 

“What ways?” Matt continues.

“Look, I said I’d get you a drink, you could just drink it, you know, leave it at that.”

“You said you have a problem; I want to know what it is,” Matt pushes back.

“No, you don’t,” Frank insists.

“You’re gonna tell me what I want?”

“Fine, fine, Christ,” Frank shakes his head, leaning back in his chair again. Matt can feel his jeans flex against the motion, hands resting flat on the table on either side of his beer. “You should leave it alone. This case, that girl. Just let her do what she wants to do. Alright?”

Matt frowns. “You mean let her go to prison? For the rest of her life?”

“Let her do what she wants to do,” Frank repeats.

“You think she deserves that?”

Frank looks back at him firmly. “Yeah. I do. And she does, too. What makes you think you know better?”

Matt can’t help letting out an incredulous laugh. “I just… the evidence shows that—“

“You don’t have to tell me what the evidence shows. I had to leave my damn kids in a hallway because I was up so late trying to finish the mountain of paperwork that comes right along with that evidence. They were all shooting. People got hit.”

“It wasn’t her.”

“Oh, you know that? What? She didn’t shoot at anyone at all?”

Matt swallows. “I didn’t say that.”

“Cause you don’t know. Do you? You don’t know what she’s done for all these years with those gangs. I heard her statement, man, she doesn’t know what happened, she doesn’t care. Let her put herself away if that’s what she wants - doing us all a favor.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Neither do you.”

Matt’s quiet for a moment. “The other cops, at the precinct.… I haven’t heard this from them. In fact, some of them seem glad to see us there. Some of them seem like they want us to be able to help her.”

“Yeah well, what can I say,” Frank mutters into his beer, “a service record doesn’t get me distracted the same way. I know better. They don’t.”

“You mean, because you’ve—“

“Look,” Frank interrupts suddenly, “I might be late, again, on Thursday. The kids will be back and if I get held up, could they take up your couch space again? Just till I get home.”

Matt stares. “You’re… wait, you’re seriously asking me to watch your kids again?”

“You can just say no, save the bullshit.”

Matt stammers. “I’m not saying ‘no’.”

“I don’t _want_ to be late, alright? I just said I might be.”

“I didn’t say you wanted to be late.”

“Right. So is there a problem?” Frank pushes back.

Matt stares. He feels more like someone’s asking him if he wants to get taken out back and punched into a dumpster, not be responsible for two adolescent kids on a Thursday night.

He shakes his head eventually. “Uh, no. No problem.”

“You’ll be around?”

Matt blinks. “I, uh, I think so. Probably.”

Frank’s looking back at him. “You’ll let me know if you’re not?”

Matt tries to get his head around this, suddenly feeling like he’s being interviewed for something. “I guess, I mean, I can, but how—“

“Frank?” a voice suddenly calls.

Frank’s attention snaps in the direction of the voice and promptly swears under his breath. A woman is moving towards their table.

“You were right! I love this place!” the woman’s voice continues, and Matt recognizes it now, from the other day, at the station. Nice. Younger. He can almost feel her smile on the tone of it. Frank’s partner. It must be.

“I said this place was a shithole,” Frank says.

“Yeah! And it’s a pretty great shithole, not gonna lie.” She sounds pleasantly tipsy, and suddenly seems to catch sight of Matt. “Oh my god. Oh shit, I’m so _so_ sorry, I didn’t realize—”

“Karen,” Frank says in a low warning tone.

“Oh my god, you’re the babysitter! Right?”

“Karen!” Frank insists, a flash of sudden panic in his voice.

Matt can’t help laughing. “Babysitter?”

“Jesus christ,” Frank swears.

“God, I’m sorry,” the woman continues, she leans on the table towards Matt, “I just, I honestly didn’t think he’d actually ask you, he’s like, terrible at this, like really, _really_ terrible at this.”

Matt raises an eyebrow. “Terrible at what?”

“Alright,” Frank says suddenly standing, “we’re going.” He seems to get his partner under the arm.

“Oh no! I didn’t mean - Frank, shit, I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry,” but she’s already obviously just managing to keep herself from falling into hysterics. “I just thought—“

“Alright, alright, here we go,” Frank insists, moving them even further away. “We’re going.”

“Uh,” Matt starts, feeling even more lost than before. “Bye?”

“Bye!” Karen’s voice calls from deeper into the bar. “It was nice to meet you!”

The sound of their departure trails off and then vanishes altogether. Matt thinks he hears the door push open and swing shut behind them.

“Yeah,” he manages. “Nice to meet you.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

“So,” Foggy sighs. “What now?”

Matt lets out a long sigh. “Uh, prayer?”

“Cut that out, man, seriously. We need a game plan! Let’s focus here. No Hail Marys, please.”

“Alright,” Matt gets to his feet, running a hand through his hair. It’s raining outside, has been all day, and the steady drum of it against the air conditioners of the surrounding offices is making his head ache.

“We just,” he starts again, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We need a new angle, a new approach.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“Maybe we can break down what happened, find something we missed. I really don’t think this was her fault, Foggy. I think she was a part of it, of course she was, but maybe if we can, I don’t know, take it apart, piece by piece, we can help her see that.”

“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”

“Let’s do it again,” Matt claps his hands, starting to pace. “The shooting started at 9PM, south side of town. We don’t know why.” 

“All signs point to drug war.”

“Right - dead from two gangs on the site, lots of shots. Maybe a meeting gone wrong?”

“Maybe,” Foggy shrugs. “Maybe the two gangs get together, try to strike a deal, one or both sides planning the whole time to take the others out, keep the whole market for themselves.”

“So, the shooting starts, hell breaks loose, shots go flying. Two civilians get hit at the bus station across the street. Three through the fifth floor apartment windows on the corner.”

“And where’s Carla during all of this?”

Matt sighs, flicking through papers on the desk. “We don’t know. Do we?”

“They picked her up outside the building. Just sitting against the wall, like she was waiting for the patrol cars.”

Matt frowns, finding the paper he was looking for. “Oliver Sosa. Where was he?”

“What? The guy the cops say was leading one side?” Foggy helps sort through the papers. “He was deep in it if I remember. Yeah, here we go. He was in the main room in the warehouse, along with, shit, _twelve_ other dead members, from both sides.” 

“It must have started there, the shooting, all of it.” Matt frowns, trying to focus. “How many shots?”

“What? Shit like, hundreds, man.”

“I mean Oliver, how many shots killed him?”

Foggy shuffles more papers, some sounding slicker—photographs. “Uh… wow, one.”

“One direct hit.”

“Yeah, funny.”

“Because the rest of the bodies in that room were riddled.”

“Yeah! Like at least three shots each. It was chaos in there. He must have gotten lucky, I mean, relatively speaking.”

“Yeah,” Matt lets his fingers glide over the silky unknown of the photos. “...Do we have more information on him? His history?”

“Uhhh, let’s seeee,” Foggy trails off, fumbling around the desk. Suddenly Foggy’s phone buzzes in his pocket, SmashMouth ringtone chiming away.

“You really should change that, you know,” Matt says.

“Classics never get old, Matt” Foggy insists, pulling the phone to his face. “Yeah, hello?”

Foggy’s face drops. Matt can feel him straighten up instantly.

“What?” Matt asks, “Foggy, what?”

Foggy hangs up the phone and scrambles towards the door. “We have to go. Now. Now, now, now.”

“Why?” Matt calls after him, just managing to grab his jacket.

“The D.A. is at the station.”

“ _What_?”

“They’re already talking to Clara.”

Matt’s out of breath by the time they hit the front desk inside the 35th precinct. Foggy just manages to gasp: “Nelson and Murdock to see—“ He stops just as the door to inside of the precinct swings open. “Shit.” Foggy swears.

Matt hears the crisp tap of shiny heels and oxfords, the quick paces and shuffle of well tailored suits. Lawyers from the D.A.’s office, and they’re already on their way out.

“Hey!” Foggy yells after them. “Hey, hold on, what makes you think you have any right to discuss this case with our client without legal representation present?” They’re not listening. They’re heading right out the door, and Foggy’s heading right out along with them, still yelling jargon at their backs.

Matt turns back to the counter, voice tight. “I’d like to see our client. Now, please.”

Carla’s body language is still tense enough to feel when Matt steps through the doorway onto the concrete floors. She isn’t looking at him, arms crossed even closer than usual. Matt heads inside, trying to keep his breathing even after the frantic run over here.

“Carla?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Carla, we just saw the D.A. leaving. What did they want?”

“It doesn’t matter,” her voice says, quiet and rough.

“What did they want?” Matt repeats.

She looks at him for the first time. “I said, it doesn’t matter. Two weeks. One. It doesn’t make any difference.”

Matt straightens. “One week?”

She shrugs. “That’s what they wanted. They told me they’re only giving me a week to ‘see things their way’. Said they were getting impatient.” She snorts a laugh. “Yeah, like I give a fuck about their patience.”

“So we have,” he thinks quickly; then his eyes widen, “we have _five days_?”

“Sounds like it,” Carla says. “Not too long to wait. You guys should start planning your vacations. You’ll get this hot mess out of your hair real soon.”

“Carla,” Matt says with as much focus as he can, finding the chair and sitting in front of her. “You have to talk to us. You have to let us, let yourself, make this deal.”

He feels her brow tighten. “Are you fucking deaf, too, or what? I said _I don’t give a shit, leave me alone_.”

“God,” Matt says, head falling back, bright overhead fluorescent catching off his glasses. “Why? Why does this seem like the only answer that you have left?”

“Why do you care so much? Don’t you have anything better to do?”

He ignores that. “You were there, at the shoot-out. I don’t think it was your fault. I think you got caught up in something you weren’t ready for.”

“You don’t know shit about what I’m ready for,” she suddenly snaps. “You don’t know a single damn thing about where I’ve been, about what I’ve had to be ready for.”

Matt pushes onward; he has to. “You didn’t expect it to go down like that. Not you. Not Oliver.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know shit.” Her voice is quieter, a steady rage growing underneath it.

“I know that you made it out. I know you were waiting for the patrol cars. I know Oliver went down with far fewer shots than anyone else in that place. Just one. Just one bad luck shot while everyone else was riddled. Almost like he had someone looking out for him.”

“Shut up,” she says firmly.

“You were protecting him. Weren’t you? Your first statement. After they picked you up. You said ‘it wasn’t enough’. What wasn’t enough? Do you think you weren’t enough? Weren’t strong enough to save him?” 

“Shut up,” she snaps. He can feel her eyes on him now, burning with rage. “You don’t know anything about it.”

Matt doesn’t back down. He keeps his voice calm but steady. “It’s not your fault, Carla.”

She’s quiet for a long moment. Matt swallows. Waiting. Finally he opens his mouth, but she beats him to it.

“Leave,” she says.

He blinks. “I didn’t—“

“Leave,” she says, louder this time. “Leave. Now.”

There’s nothing else he can do. An officer shows him out into the main corridor. He knows Foggy’s likely waiting somewhere in the lobby, probably still yelling at the D.A., whether he’s managed to keep them there long enough to listen or just called their office instead to take the objections to the next level. But Matt can’t seem to make himself head that way just yet.

He leans back against the wall with a sigh. Just when he thought this case couldn’t get any worse…. 

“Um,” a soft voice calls. “Hi.”

Matt turns towards it. He recognizes it. It’s a little less tipsy but just as natural, just as kind. “Oh,” he answers. “Yeah, hi.”

The voice moves closer, clicking steps on the tile floor. He feels her hand rise and he manages to find it. 

“It’s Matt, right?” she tries, a little uncertain.

“Yeah, yeah,” he confirms. “And it’s, uh, Karen?”

“That’s me,” she admits, somewhat reluctantly. “Look, I just wanted to apologize, for the bar thing.”

Matt shakes his head. “Apologize for what?” 

“Oh, I hardly even know anymore, but I obviously interrupted _something_ , which I am most definitely not going to try to name, so: sorry.” 

Matt shrugs. “That’s fine. Not even sure it, uh, qualifies as a _something_.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Karen shakes her head. Her hair sounds long against her shoulders. He wonders what color it is. He’s got a strong inclination to guess blonde. “But I still feel like a bit of an ass about the whole thing. Frank wasn’t exactly over the moon about it.”

“Yeah well, he doesn’t seem over the moon about too much. I’d say firmly grounded is probably a pretty decent rule of thumb, huh?”

“Yeah,” Karen smiles, “yeah, you could definitely say that.”

Matt suddenly finds himself opening his mouth again, and god, maybe after that shit-storm he’s just too desperate for a distraction. “What’s he like? As a, uh, partner, I mean.”

Karen seems a little surprised, but happy at the same time. She takes a step closer, leaning against the wall next to him and crossing her arms as she considers with a little shrug. “He’s, um, stubborn, honest to a fault, which isn’t always a good thing. He thinks he’s right about almost everything. And he is actually right an annoying amount of the time. But when he’s wrong, he’ll own it.”

“What else?” Matt says before he can stop himself.

“He always brings me coffee,” Karen says, “most likely just because he’s completely addicted himself and stops to get some at least three times a day. He’s won the NYPD marksmanship contest three years running and will probably win it for the next fifty. And he is considerate. More than people realize. Honestly,” she tilts her head to one side, looking off at the distance as she thinks, “he’s a major pain in my ass, but he’s the best. Just really, the best.”

Matt nods. “That’s, uh, good.”

“Yeah,” Karen answers with a small warm smile. “Definitely.”

“Oh,” Matt suddenly remembers, “I think I owe you a thank-you.”

“What for?” her brow furrows.

“You said I was at least a halfway trustworthy person, I think.”

“Oh!” she exclaims, “you mean the kids thing,” she laughs. “You’re going to thank me for getting you stuck with someone else’s pre-teens for a night?”

“More for the character reference, but sure.” He focuses on her again. “What made you say that, by the way? That I was a good person?”

“This might be a surprise but people are starting to know who you two are,” she holds his look with a quiet confidence. “You’re doing good things, in this neighborhood. You helped a friend of mine when she got charged after her boyfriend took a swing at her and she swung back. You helped my neighbor three floors down too, when her pipes went out and the landlord didn’t want to pay to fix it. Just…” she closes her mouth, apparently trying to find the right words, then opens it again. “I hope you know it’s appreciated. The work you two do. It matters.”

Matt can’t help feeling some of the weight of the day lift off his shoulders. “That means a lot, Karen, thank you. Especially today.” 

“Oh right,” she says, “Are you… is she talking to you?”

“No,” Matt swallows. “She definitely is not talking to us.” 

“I hope you can help her,” Karen says firmly. “I really do.”

Matt snorts. “Frank doesn’t seem to share that opinion.”

Karen shakes her head with a mutter. “Yeah, well, Frank has his own problems.”

Matt frowns. “What do you mean by that?”

“Matt!” Foggy’s voice yells. He’s running down the hall towards him, stumbling to a stop right in front of them. 

“What?” Matt asks.

“We have to go,” Foggy says.

“Why?”

Foggy looks like he’s going to be sick. “The front desk just informed me that Carla Ruiz has removed our names from her accepted visitors list.”

Matt feels like he’ll barely be able to make it up the last twenty stairs. They spent most of the afternoon tracking down Carla’s sister, trying to get her to convince Carla to change her mind, which after two hours only resulted in everyone getting removed from the station without any means of getting back in. He and Foggy spent an hour convincing Carla’s sister they would find something to do, anything to do, then another three hours realizing there was nothing they _could_ do. 

Their hands are tied. They can’t see their client. They can’t talk to their client. They have five days and then it’s over. Matt takes another shaky breath and gets to his floor. What the hell are they going to do?

“Hey,” a voice says.

The sound surprises him so much he’s suddenly intensely grateful he didn’t fall right back down the stairs.

He tries to recover. And shit, that’s right. God. He really is an idiot. “Lisa?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she answers. He hears her elbow someone next to her.

“Hey,” Junior’s voice sounds duly.

“I, uh,” Matt swallows. “How long have you been waiting out here?” 

She shrugs. “Twenty minutes. I was wondering if you were going to show up.”

Twenty minutes. Oh well, could have been worse. They could have been the whole night. “Sorry,” he says, reaching for his keys.

Lisa shrugs. “It’s cool.”

Matt shoulders his door open. And god, does he really have the energy for this? Why is he doing this again? Making dinner for someone else’s kids—someone he barely knows, someone who apparently couldn’t give less of a shit about Matt’s life or his responsibilities?

Foggy was right, wasn’t he? Morons with hearts of gold. They really should get it on the business cards. But this is what being a New Yorker is about really, isn’t it? Being a _real_ New Yorker, not these kids who pour into the city looking for a pot of gold at the end of some imaginary rainbow. Real New Yorkers look out for each other. They might swear at each other across blocks and give every other soul in the city shit, but that’s all part of it, isn’t it? It’s looking out for each other, just the New York way of doing it.

Matt pushes open the door with a tired smile. “Hungry?”

“Definitely.”

Funnily enough, just an hour later he’s having a hard time remembering what he’d been so worn down over. 

“So Casey,” Lisa continues, swinging her feet where she’s sitting on the stool by the counter as he boils pasta. “She just starts sobbing because she spilled her kombucha and her mom is going to ‘kill her’, because apparently she has to ‘maintain a pristine intestinal tract’.”

Matt can’t help grinning. “‘A pristine intestinal tract’?”

“ _Right_? Like what does that even _mean_? I mean, how do you even know if you’ve got something like that? It’s like something a serial killer would say, honestly.”

Matt’s laughing into the spoon as he tastes the sauce.

“And so she is all flipped out that her mom will _’just know’_ that she didn’t drink it because the smell of whatever the hell they make that gross stuff out of won’t be _‘on her’_. So she makes us sneak into the kitchen and get _pickle juice_ out of the fridge so she could take a shot of it before her mom picks her up after class. How disgusting is that?”

Matt furrows his brow. “How do you know what a shot is?”

Lisa rolls her eyes. “Please. I’m thirteen. I bet you knew what shots were when you were thirteen.”

Matt shrugs. “I guess. My dad usually just took swigs right out of the bottle.”

“Wow. That’s dark.”

“No, well… maybe,” Matt laughs trying to recover. “It was, it’s a bit different. He was a, well, he got hurt a lot for a living so he had to take more drinks than usual.”

“Is that what you’re supposed to do when you get hurt? Does it help?” 

“No!” Matt instantly retracts. “Don’t do that.”

Lisa smiles. “I’m kidding, spaz, jeez. I’m not an idiot.”

“Jesus,” Matt shakes his head, switching off the stove. 

“What did your dad do?” she asks.

Matt grabs a colander from under the sink. “He was a boxer.”

“Seriously?” Junior blurts out from the couch where the TV is making all sorts of crashing and squealing noises.

“Yeah, seriously,” Matt answers.

“Like, professionally?” Junior asks.

Matt smiles. “Yeah. Barely.”

He thinks Lisa’s watching him again. He feels as though she has an unusually focused and direct sort of attention. Matt thinks she and her dad have that in common. Probably doesn’t make the interrogation room a lot of fun for whomever gets dragged into the station when Frank’s on duty. 

“Do you think you’re like him?” she asks. “Like your dad I mean.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess. In some ways.”

 

“What sort of ways?”

“Well, he didn’t know when to give up. He’d break before he bent. Laughed things off easier than most people. Always got back up at the end of a hard day. And he had good reflexes. I got that, too. Luckily.”

Lisa squints. “What do you mean?” 

“I just, I have a natural sense for things, space, movement.” 

“That’s not just cause you can’t see?” Junior asks blatantly.

Matt smiles. “That’s part of it, but I think what I got from my dad makes things easier.” And god he really shouldn’t do what he’s about to do, but with kids it’s somehow so much easier. 

Matt grabs an apple off the counter and tosses it right to Junior. Junior catches it with a satisfying smack of sound. 

“Throw it at me,” Matt says. 

Junior blinks. “Seriously?” Matt can tell he’s already brimming with excitement

“Yeah. Go for it. Hard as you want.”

Lisa seems concerned. “Umm, really?”

“Go for it,” Matt confirms.

Junior hesitates, rolling the apple around his hand, probably trying to think if this is anything he’ll get in trouble for later, and deciding almost as fast that it’s worth it. He throws the apple.

Matt hears it leave his hand. The smell snaps through the air. He feels the weight of space shift just to his right. 

He catches it.

“Whoa!” Junior yells. “So cool! Can I do it again?”

Matt grins. “Yeah, sure.” He throws it back.

This time the kid’s committed. He jumps off the couch, walking all the way across the room, probably thinking it will make it harder if he’s further away without realizing the distance just makes it easier for Matt to get a sense of where it’s coming from.

Matt can hear Lisa laugh, he can hear Junior’s sneakers scuff as he apparently winds way, way up, then with a snap, lets the apple fly.

“Hey, hey!” Someone yells, snatching the apple out of the air with a scrambling grab that throws the voice off balance. “What the hell, Junior?” Frank roars.

“Hey, no! It’s cool, it’s fine!” Matt protests, holding his hands out. “I told him to.”

Frank stares. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Matt laughs. “We were just messing around.”

“See!” Junior yells.

“Yeah, Dad, jeez, calm down,” Lisa joins in.

“I, uh,” Frank starts. “Sorry.” He glances over his shoulder. “The door was open, so I just let myself in.”

A sharp smell suddenly hits Matt’s nose. The sauce is just about to burn. “Shit— I mean, not— damn it,” Matt snaps off the stove instantly, swirling the pan around to distribute the heat.

“You’re early,” Lisa says. Matt isn’t sure what to make of her tone. It’s exceptionally hard to read.

Frank clears his throat. “Yeah. I got out as soon as I could.”

Neither of the kids moves towards the door. The awkward silence thickens.

“Stay,” Matt says suddenly. “Dinner’s ready. You could stay, we could all eat.”

“Oh, uh,” Frank shakes his head, “you didn’t have to do that. I’ve got, you know, stuff next door.” 

Junior rolls his eyes. “Microwave pizza.”

Matt feels Frank tense instantly, feels Lisa’s cheeks heat up, the uncomfortable pressure of the moment flooding the room. 

“Don’t be rude,” Matt snaps sternly.

Frank’s head swivels in his direction. Everyone goes impossibly more quiet. And christ, that really just came out of his mouth, didn’t it? He opens his mouth again, suddenly all too desperate to make something less insane and presumptuous come out of it.

But Junior beats him to it.

“Sorry, Dad,” he says, voice quiet and more than a little sullen.

Frank doesn’t seem to know what to say. He awkwardly raises a hand and knocks it against his son’s shoulder.

“Look,” Matt blurts, “I had time to make food, luckily for everyone. So it’s no problem. I made plenty. Let’s just eat.”

The kids look at their dad. After a moment Frank must have given one curt nod.

“Yes!” Lisa exclaims, sliding around the table to grab a plate. 

It doesn’t take everyone long to plate up and find seats. Matt reflects that they must make an absurd picture: a blind guy in sweatpants and socks, Frank probably looking like an off duty assassin, the two kids, all eating pasta at Matt’s crappy table with the blaring light of Korean music videos pouring down around them. 

“Man, Red,” Frank shakes his head, “I hope your rent’s lower than mine with that garbage outside.”

“It wasn’t going to be, but luckily I took a friend with me to check it out and suddenly they were much more flexible with the price.”

“Damn snakes,” Frank says, taking another heaping forkful. “All just out for themselves in this city.”

 

“I don’t know,” Matt shrugs. “Not everyone.” 

He thinks he feels Frank’s eyes shift to him for a moment. “Yeah,” Frank agrees. “Not everyone.” He takes another bite. “This is damn good by the way.”

“What’s it called again?” Lisa asks. “The sauce stuff?”

“Alfredo.” Matt says. “It’s the easiest sauce to make.”

“Besides just butter?” Frank asks.

“Yeah,” Matt says, “well, butter’s actually a good part of it. It’s just stick of butter, a cup of cream, and a cup of cheese.”

Frank raises an eyebrow. “That easy?” 

“Yeah,” Matt smiles. “That easy.”

“Huh.”

“For a blind guy you’re pretty good at making food,” Junior says.

“Hey, watch it,” Frank says firmly.

Matt smiles. “It’s fine. Truth is it makes it easier. I can smell everything so it works. At school I knew a girl who liked to bake and she always said that the smell was the best way to know when something was ready to come out of the oven.”

“How do you tell the salt and sugar apart?” Junior asks. 

Frank sighs, “Christ, kid.”

“Different shaped bowls,” Matt answers without pause. “And I taste it before I use it, just to be extra sure.” 

“Ohhh, yeah,” Junior nods. “That makes sense.”

“What are we going to do tomorrow, Dad?” Lisa asks.

Frank looks up.

“It’s your day off, right?” she continues. “You said we would do something.”

“Yeah,” he answers, “yeah, course we will.”

“So, what are we gonna do?”

He pauses. Just long enough that Matt can’t help opening his mouth again.

“The MET is cool.” 

“The MET?” Junior asks.

“Yeah. The museum.”

He thinks he feels Frank hating him a little bit more than usual.

“What’s there?” Lisa asks.

“Tons of stuff,” Matt says. “Sculptures, paintings, artifacts—”

“Sounds boring,” Junior says.

“—Mummies, old swords, suits of armor,” Matt continues.

“Oh. That’s alright then,” Junior admits.

“Could we go, Dad?” Lisa asks.

Frank looks at her, a small smile twitching onto his cheeks. “Yeah. Yeah, course we can.”

“Can Matt come?”

Oh god.

“Yeah!” Junior suddenly agrees. “Yeah, Matt should come, too.” 

“No, I, uh,” Matt tries to back out, “I don’t want to interrupt anything, or—“

“You should come,” Frank says.

Matt blinks. He feels Frank looking back at him, just for a moment before he drops his head back to his pasta. 

“I mean, if you want. It’s no big deal. I know you’re busy.”

Matt snorts a laugh. “Uh, I’m actually not. Not anymore.”

Frank looks up again, brows furrowing.

“Then you can come!” Lisa says.

Matt swallows. And god, there’s really a hundred different reasons this is a _terrible_ idea. The whole mess of this day shifts through his mind—he call, the way she told him to leave, Foggy frantically sorting through papers back at the office to find something, anything, finally collapsing behind the desk with a defeated sigh. He hears Karen in that hallway, that clear blue tone in her voice: _“He’s a major pain in my ass, but he’s the best. Just really, the best.”_

Matt smiles, small but present. “Yeah, sure. I can come.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Seriously, Matt, I don’t know what we’ve got left. I think we might be beat,” Foggy’s voice says through the crackle of Matt’s cell phone.

Matt sighs. The smell of pretzels is strong on the stone steps up to the museum, and voices cluster around him: college kids laughing loudly, kids racing after parents, pigeons taking off as they get out of the way. “We’re definitely in a tight corner.”

“ _Tight corner_?” Foggy repeats. “We’re beyond the corner Matt, we’re in the cracks of the wall.”

“So what? We tell her sister there’s nothing else we can do?”

Foggy sighs. “Yeah, cause I’m really looking forward to that conversation…”

“I don’t know, Foggy,” Matt says, “if we can’t talk to the client—“

“I know, I know.”

Matt takes a deep breath, making himself focus. “We’ve got ten days.”

“Yeah. Lucky us.”

“Well, we might as well use them, for something at least. Who knows. Better than just giving in, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know Matt, I’m not so sure about that…”

“Alright, alright,” Matt pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look into Sosa. Their history. I mentioned him last time we were there and I think I was getting somewhere.”

“Yeah, you were getting us kicked out and fired.”

“Still - I think that’s where a lot of this is coming from. Can we find a history? Something?”

Foggy sighs loudly through the phone. “Yeah, sure, why not. I’ll just go back to the files. Good ol’ files, they always listen so respectfully when I break down in tears.”

“I’ll come back in,” Matt says instantly, “I can come back, help you look, I don’t—“

“No, no, no,” Foggy insists, “you’re not getting out of this that easy. I can handle it. You enjoy your date.”

“It’s not—“ Matt starts. Foggy hangs up before he can finish.

Matt tightens his jaw, pocketing the phone. “Great. That’s great.”

It _isn’t_ a date. At least he’s ninety percent sure it isn’t a date. It’s nothing more than adolescent coercion and societal obligation. Although… Frank doesn’t exactly seem like the type of person who’s all that keen on obligations, especially the societal kind. But even if it wasn’t an obligation, even if it wasn’t just kids insisting, it’s not like Matt even wants it to be a date. Does he?

Matt fiddles with his phone in his pocket, tapping his cane idly against the steps. What time is it anyways? Who knows if he’ll even show up. He’ll probably end up “stuck at the precinct” or some other excuse. Wouldn’t that be perfect? Matt gets stood up by three people for his definitely-not-a-date.

“Hey, Red.”

Matt definitely doesn’t jump.

Frank sounds like he’s smiling. “So, people can sneak up on you, huh?”

Matt clears his throat. “Yeah. Congratulations.”

He doesn’t seem to have anyone with him. And why does that make something feel like it’s squeezing and fluttering all at once behind Matt’s chest?

“Are, uh, your kids—?”

“They’re getting those shit pretzels down there,” Frank says, likely gesturing. “I tried to tell ‘em—“

“The worst pretzels are always at the tourist spots,” Matt finishes for him.

Frank seems a little startled. “Yeah. That’s right.” He adjusts his stance. “Shit hot dogs here. too, not as bad as outside the Empire State, though. The best hot dogs are—“

“45th and 11th,” Matt butts in.

Frank grins. “Bullshit. 9th and 50th.”

Matt smiles. “You’re insane.”

“Yeah, well maybe, councillor, maybe, but least I know a decent hot dog comes with peppers and onions.”

Matt shakes his head. He thinks he has a pretty full sense of Frank now: the smell of coffee, the weight of his body, posture solid and centered on the steps, hands in the pockets of his jeans. Frank makes a small adjustment, Matt thinks it might be fixing a baseball cap. He wonders what sort of cap it is.

“So, tell me, Red, you really had to drag my ass all the way uptown for this shit?”

Matt balks. “It’s not that far.”

“I don’t give a shit about far, 5th Avenue just makes my damn skin crawl. You know even the precincts up in these parts keep lavender soap in the bathrooms.”

“Oh yeah. I’m sure that’s absolutely true.”

“Hey, that’s guaranteed. Don’t even want to know what the lawyers round here look like.”

“Don’t worry. They’re too busy sleeping on piles of gold to go out into the direct sunlight.”

Frank laughs. It’s a gruff huff of a sound. But it’s nice, and warm in a way he wasn’t expecting.

“You know,” Frank continues, “if you really needed to stand in big rooms with a whole bunch of real quiet people, the MoMA’s ten blocks from our building?”

“I like it here,” Matt says. “Anyways, the MoMA doesn’t have suits of armor. Or mummies.”

“Guess that’s so. And last time I went in there I saw enough goddamn curled mustaches to last a lifetime.”

“Hey, Matt,” Lisa’s voice says suddenly as she steps up to them, smell of cardboard pretzel wafting off of her.

“Hey,” he says. “Hey, Junior.”

Junior makes a barely audible reply around a massive bite.

“Hey. Don’t choke,” Frank says, landing a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Your mom will kick my ass.”

Frank spins Junior towards the entrance, heading up the stairs. Lisa walks after them next to Matt.

“Did you have to work today?” she asks.

Matt considers for a moment. “I’m taking the day off.”

“Oh,” she smiles, “thanks.”

Matt smiles back. “How’s that pretzel?”

She takes another bite. “It tastes like old newspaper. With mustard on it.”

“Not surprised.”

As soon as they’re inside the building the sound transforms all around them. The clustered voices of the crowd that had been so smothered in the warmth of spring New York air now escape, flying and fluttering up and around the domed stone foyer like tiny bright birds in a gargantuan aviary.

“Whoa!” Junior’s voice carries. “It’s big.”

“Oh my _god_ , Junior,” Lisa groans.

“What?”

“Is that really all you can say?”

“What?” Junior calls reproachfully. “It is big!”

“Kid’s not wrong,” Frank notes. By the sound of his voice his neck is craned back, rough tones circling upwards to bounce off the old worn marble with the rest of them. Matt’s fairly sure they’re under the domed skylight. He wonders briefly what Frank looks like standing there, head turned up into pale light that pours and pools around the angles of his face.

“What first?” Lisa asks, tugging Matt’s sleeve.

Matt snaps back to himself. “I, uh—“

“Whatever you want,” Frank says.

He slides a piece of paper off a nearby display, handing it to her. Matt guesses it’s a map.

“You’re our guide.” Frank says.

Lisa sounds as though she’s eagerly unfolding the new responsibility.

“So?” Matt asks. “Where to?”

Her attention snaps upright, the sound of the map slipping from both hands to just one and Matt guesses she’s pointing firmly. “Egypt,” she declares.

They head to Egypt, and through India, and backwards past Europe, circling through wide rooms and smaller corridors, between the old stone shapes of ruins, up staircases, and around clustered muttering groups pressed close to glass cases. Tour guide call in respectful commanding voices, as many feet shuffle back and forth anxiously to keep up. Old weary steps move slowly, leisurely between exhibits, while little shoes rush back and forth, their owners’ attention bouncing between every wall.

“God,” Frank says, “this place is huge.”

They’re heading into what Matt thinks he remembers as the American wing. Lisa and Junior run past them all the way to the end of the hall as a security officer scolds them with a hushed tutting.

Matt glances in Frank’s direction. “Have you... ever been here before?”

“Nope.”

Matt stares. “Seriously?”

Frank laughs. “That a fucking shock to you, Red?”

“Honestly. Yeah. A bit. I thought everyone had been here.”

“Guess I’m not everyone.”

Frank slows, as if he’s looking at something on the wall to the right. Matt stops next to him, turning in the direction his voice is facing.

Frank leans back on his heels. “Why’d you want to come here anyways? Museums must be boring as hell for you. Christ, they’re boring for me and I’m the one actually looking at this shit.”

Matt shrugs. “They’re nicer than you’d think.”

“What’d you mean?” Frank asks. It seems like he’s looking at Matt now, head tilted just over his shoulder.

Matt wets his lips, looking at where he thinks whatever’s on the opposite wall must be. “I like… the feeling. The sense of the space in here.”

“What? The atmosphere?” Frank tries.

“Yeah, you could call it that. It’s, uh,” Matt tries, “it’s… special. Sacred in a way, I guess. I can’t see the art, the antiquities, I can’t touch it, but I can feel, feel the way people look at it. There’s something almost holy there. It feels… reverent. Peaceful.”

“Don’t get enough church on Sundays there, Red?”

Matt smiles. “It’s different. It’s… it’s a church people make themselves. There’s something special about that.”

Frank starts walking again, steps steady and solid. He never seems to be in much of a hurry, as if he knows exactly what it takes to get anywhere and there’s no reason to rush. He just continues on with an almost relaxed kind of steadfastness.

“Yeah,” Frank says after a minute, “guess I could get that.”

It feels as if they’ve moved into another room. Matt can hear the kid’s quicker lighter steps moving between center displays and along the walls, calling in almost respectful voices back and forth to each other.

“Honestly,” Frank starts again, “I think I probably get even less from this stuff than you do.”

Matt snorts. “Come on.”

“No, no, seriously. I just… I mean what the hell is this one?” Frank stops, gesturing to the wall.

Matt gives him a look. “I don’t know, Frank. What the hell is that one?”

Frank laughs. “Shit, uh,” he sounds like he’s actually studying the thing, trying to come up with something. “It’s a bunch of guys in a boat.”

Matt smiles. “Doing what?”

“Well, mostly being really shit at being in a boat,” Frank continues with a lopsided grin.

Matt lets out a laugh.

“I mean, shit,” Frank continues, “there’s at least a dozen of them in there, and goddamn canoe doesn’t look like it’s got a capacity of more than _five_. They got rules about that, you know? Least in my unit we actually read the equipment, didn’t just pile a dozen jackasses into some flimsy piece of shit and shove it out into an icy river.”

“The river’s icy?” Matt can’t seem to stop smiling.

“Oh, yeah. Not that these assholes care. Looks like they just shoved off, cause who gives a shit right, and now they’re all pushing sticks and whatever the hell else off the sides into the water, trying to move, probably stuck, cause that’s what you get when you act like a bunch of dip-shits. It’s definitely all this asshole in the middle’s fault.” Matt can hear Frank grinning. “I mean look at this piece of goddamn work, huh.”

“Let me guess: wearing a wig? American flag behind him?”

“Like that’s some kind of excuse. Who the hell poses like that, anyways? Here’s Captain Morgan standing, which is breaking the first goddamn common sense rule of canoes by the way, _standing_ , in the middle of this sad excuse for a boat while these poor sons-of-bitches he made shove his ass out into a frozen river in the first place are just trying to make do and save their own skins before the whole thing flips right over.”

Matt’s barely managing not to laugh _way_ louder than he should in a museum, which is only made harder by the fact that Frank seems to be enjoying himself just as much.

“I mean,” he continues, “there’s this one dude at the front, Red, who’s just bailing. He’s done. He’s got one foot out on a goddamn iceberg. He’d rather try to swim across the damn frozen river than have to spend another fucking minute staring at this asshole’s frilly cuffs and ponytail.”

Matt’s not even trying not to laugh now. He’s pretty sure people are staring over their shoulders at them.

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Frank continues, “and the horses, Red! Who the fuck brings horses in a goddamn canoe?”

Matt loses it. He can feel Frank grinning next to him, watching as he tries to get a hold of himself.

“Gentlemen,” the quiet voice of a security guard sounds. “Is there a problem?”

“Hey,” Frank holds up his hands, “no problem, no problem. He just thinks there’s something apparently goddamn hilarious about this fine piece of American history.”

Matt darts a hand out, smacking Frank quickly against his side, which he _really_ wasn’t expecting to feel like granite against his hand, but Frank’s already letting out a short, “Hey,” and knocking him back against the shoulder.

“Gentlemen,” the infinitely pressed voice comes back, “if you can’t control yourselves I’m going to have to ask you—“

“Sorry,” Matt says quickly, just managing to stop laughing long enough to sound guilty. “I’m so sorry, we’re moving along.”

The rest of the museum is significantly more enjoyable than any audio guide-tour he’s been on before.

By the time they make it up to the rooftop gardens the sun is strong and clear. Matt sits down on one of the benches as Frank follows Junior’s direct path to go lean too far over the nearest edge. Matt knows that the view must be amazing from up here; the museum sits along the park and from the roof they’re on now all of Central Park must fall out underneath, blue sky overhead, sparkling lakes in between, and around it all the fluorescent spring green surrounded by the aging stoic buildings of his city.

He feels Lisa sit down next to him. “Glad you took the day off?”

Matt laughs. “Actually, yeah.”

“You seem like you’re having fun,” she says.

“You’re the one who’s supposed to be having fun,” Matt says back. “That’s sort of the whole point.”

“I am,” she assures him with a bright tone. He hears her take a deep breath, letting it out light and clear as though she’s tilting her face up to the warm sun.

“My hair is brown by the way,” she says.

Matt blinks. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says simply. “My eyes are green, like my mom’s, not brown like Dad’s. But my hair’s like his. Mom says I get to blame him when it’s a pain in the butt. It grows _way_ too fast and gets even more stupid thick than usual when it’s rainy outside.”

Matt smiles. “Good to know.”

She turns to him, and now he imagines thick dark brown hair with just a bit of a wave falling over her shoulder. “How do you normally tell what people look like?”

Matt shrugs. “I normally don’t worry about it.”

“ _Ever_?”

“Well, sometimes, if I really want to know, I’ll touch their face, but that’s—“

“That’s so cool!” She grabs both of his hands and unceremoniously shoves them against both of her cheeks. “Tell me what I look like.”

Matt laughs. “Uh, I don’t—“

“Come one! I want to know what my face _feels_ like I look like. If that makes any sense. I mean, I want to see how close you get to getting it right.”

“You trying to smother my kid, Red?” Frank’s voice calls as he and Junior step back up to them.

Matt goes to pull his hands back but she’s got a good grip. “He’s going to tell me what I look like,” she insists.

Matt sighs. “Alright, alright,” he focuses, opening his palms and letting them ghost over her jaw, the structure of her cheeks, the line of her nose. “Hmm, very strange,” he starts.

“What?” she asks, eyes going wide.

“Oh well, it’s just: even eyes… lower eyebrows… strong cheekbones… slightly broad nose… this is very strange.”

“ _What_?”

“It just all feels perfectly normal. Not like an adolescent demon at all.”

“Hey!” she shouts as Junior falls into hysterics.

“Do me, do me!” Junior suddenly yells, shoving his sister out of the way.

Matt’s really hoping that too many people aren’t staring at them. “Alright, alright.” He places his palms against Junior’s face. He’s got every indicator of an eleven year old kid, smaller features, cheeks still rounded and softer, jaw just starting to shoot out. He’s got the same low brow as his sister, he wonders if they get that from Frank’s side.

“Hmmmm,” Matt says dramatically, “oh, now this is more what I was expecting.”

“What?” Junior asks expectantly.

“Oh, just this, oh man, this _giant_ nose,” he pinches it as Junior lets out something between a shout of protest and a snort of laughter. Matt doesn’t let go. “Oh no, this really is a shame, I think it’s going to have to come off.” He gives it a little twist and Junior squeals. “What do you think?” he asks Frank.

“Oh, definitely,” Frank says. “I’ve been meaning to do it for years. I’m real glad you brought it up.”

“Alright, good, so it’s coming off then,” he starts to twist again and Junior let’s out a peal of giddy panic, falling back out of his grip.

“Dad!” Lisa suddenly calls. “Do Dad!”

“Yeah!” Junior echoes. “Do Dad!”

Matt’s throat feels a little dry. “Uhh—“

“Come on!” Lisa calls. She’s off her seat, grabbing her Dad’s sleeve and pulling him down into her place.

Frank feels very close suddenly. That smell: coffee, and whatever that something else is that he can’t place.

“I don’t normally, uh,” Matt tries, “I usually ask permission first.“

“’S’fine,” Frank says suddenly, and his voice sounds awfully close, too, close enough that the deep rumble of it is almost something Matt can feel. “No worries.” He sounds like he’s smiling, like it’s nothing, no big deal, but there’s a sense of tightness in his limbs all the same.

Matt lets his tongue dart over his lower lip. “Alright,” he raises his hands.

“Ah crap,” Frank says suddenly leaning back. Matt twitches back himself, but Frank just reaches up, taking off his baseball cap before leaning forward again. He clears his throat. “Alright. All good.”

Matt takes a deep breath and hopes no one notices. He reaches out tentatively, and his fingertips graze the side of Frank’s face almost instantly.

Frank twitches, just for a split second at the first touch, but almost as quickly leans forward slightly, as if he’s sorry his reflexes kicked in initially and is trying to make up for it. Matt takes the sign and lets his hands open, sliding palms first around the shape of his jaw.

Matt grins. “You’ve got a big head.”

He feels Frank’s laugh as warm breath against his wrist. “Yeah. No shit.”

Matt lets his hands open fully, pressing them in turns against the contours of Frank’s forehead, his chin, his cheekbones. The kids definitely get that heavy jaw and low brow from him.

He draws his fingers down between his brows, tracing the lines of his nose.

Matt feels his own voice going lower, quieter than before as he smiles. “How many times did you break this?” His palm glides over the thick bridge of his nose, just enough of a bump in the middle to tell.

Frank smiles, and he can feel it, feel the way one cheek just twitches to the side.

“Thirteen times.”

“What?!” Junior yells.

Matt grins. “You’re kidding."

“Nah, totally serious.”

“How?” Matt hears himself ask.

“First time I was six and fell off a fence, then a few times off my bike. Few more in high school when people didn’t know when to call it quits. Once when a jackass friend of mine overseas hit me in the face throwing me a can of beer. Seriously now I think it just breaks for the hell of it; did it once when I rolled over in bed too hard and knocked my face against the nightstand.”

Matt laughs, and Frank laughs right along with him, and Matt can’t help moving his fingers, tracing as quickly as he dares over the lines of his lips. He feels Frank tense instantly, and Matt can’t help feeling shocked at the distinct shape of his mouth. He remembers tracing a sculpture’s mouth against his fingers once, some Roman soldier in a museum he snuck a hand against. It had been exactly like that. Only not nearly as warm, and without the stubble on either side. He suddenly has a powerful urge to slide his hands down, to trace the lines of Frank’s neck, see how thickly it joins with his jaw, with his shoulders, to ease fingers up and back into Frank’s hair to know if it’s as short as he thinks it is. Maybe it’s a little longer. Maybe just long enough to get a hold of.

His head feels a little foggy suddenly, hearing hazy and just a bit distant. Matt’s hands seem to have developed a mind of their own. His palms easy up Frank’s cheeks again, in such a way that hopefully it isn’t as noticeable when Matt rests one of his thumbs just brushing Frank’s lower lip. He’s still for a moment, then Frank’s mouth opens, just a touch, as if to breathe, and Matt’s heart is suddenly thudding against his chest.

“Well?” Lisa’s voice asks expectantly.

Matt drops his hands instantly. He clears his throat, trying to ignore the heat rapidly clambering into his cheeks and down his neck. “Oh, uh—“

Frank’s leaned back quickly as well. He smiles, but it feels more strained than before. “Lost cause, huh, Red?”

“Yeah,” Matt smiles stiffly back, “total lost cause.”

 

It doesn’t take them long to get back down to the front steps of the museum, pushing out of the wide empty space of fluttering voices into the buzz and thrum of traffic and the heavy bouncing smells of the city.

“Are you going back to work now?” Lisa asks Matt.

Matt swallows, still feeling a little hazy. “I, yeah, well probably.” He keeps his head down. “You going back to the precinct?”

Frank glances over his shoulder. “Uh, yeah. Yeah I— I’ve got some stuff I got to do today. Just got a half day off. I should pick up the evening shift.” He doesn’t sound totally convinced.

“Right, yeah, no, of course,” Matt says quickly. “I should get back to, you know, help out.”

“Yeah,” Frank answers gruffly. “I’ll get you two a cab back to your mom’s, alright,” he says, heading down to the curb as Matt follows behind them. Frank whistles for a cab, loudly.

“Dad!” Lisa calls after him. “You don’t have to, we can take the subway.”

“Yeah, and I have Uber,” Junior complains.

“No way,” Frank says firmly. “It’s not a big deal.”

“We can hang out more,” Junior says suddenly. “It’s not like there’s anything going on at home anyways. Mom’s too busy now that she’s getting married or whatever.”

“Junior!” Lisa snaps.

Matt stops. Frank’s suddenly gone very still.

“You’re so stupid!” Lisa yells. “God, Mom said we shouldn’t say anything. Do you even _listen_? _Ever_?”

“What?” Junior yells back, voice hurried, embarrassed and worried and trying to hide it with frustration. “It’s not my fault! I just… I didn’t—!“

A cab pulls up to the curb.

Lisa turns to Frank. “Dad, he didn’t, he wasn’t—“

“Hey, it’s fine. Don’t worry,” Frank says. He sounds like he’s smiling but there’s something stony in his voice that wasn’t there before. He pulls open the cab door, kissing both their heads. “I’ll see you soon, yeah.” He shuts the door behind him.

Matt takes a step forward. “Frank—“ But he’s already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Jon Bernthal actually says he's broken his nose 13 times so that's not just being being CRAZY.
> 
> In case you didn't guess, the painting is Washington Crossing the Delaware.


	6. Chapter 6

Matt bounces against the side of the taxi as it hits the pothole between 51st and 10th. 

“They’re never gonna fix that one, huh?” Matt says from the back.

The cabby doesn’t even turn. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Matt shakes his head, “never mind.”

He just continues to impress. That afternoon at the museum really left a damper on the rest of the day. He tried to head back to the office to get some work done, but Foggy wasn’t there and no matter how many times Matt picked papers off the desk or tried to go back through things he couldn’t seem to focus. Bits and pieces of the day kept flicking through his mind, sometimes sneaking a smile onto his cheeks, which only left him feeling like a complete moron. He feels as if he spent the entire evening falling back in his chair with a sigh, or trying to pace out the distractions across the floor. 

After four hours of trying to get just about anything done he’d finally given up, headed in the direction of home, which is when, just to top off the day, the subway decided to shut down, which meant it took him ten minutes to get a cab.

The driver pulls up to the curb of his building. Finally. Matt gets out, fumbling with his keys in his pocket as he gets to the door. He feels tired, more tired than he ought to, and yet despite that he doubts he’ll be able to get to sleep. The entire day will likely keep haunting him, snapping up in sharp bits and pieces: the sound of laughter against the yawning empty spaces of the museum, the feeling of stubble under his fingers, Frank’s stony silence on the curb when the taxi pulled up as Lisa shoved her brother into it, still shouting at him.

“Come on,” Matt mutters to the key as it resists in the ancient lock. “Ah!” It gives finally and he pushes inside.

He makes his way up the steps, one floor at a time. Maybe he’ll just have a drink or two, turn on the TV, let himself fall asleep on the couch. It’s probably easier than lying on his back in silence in his room listening keenly for any sounds next-door despite himself.

He gets to his landing with a sigh.

“Heyyy— there he is!” A rough voice calls.

Matt stops. “…Frank?”

“Yup, you got it,” Frank’s voice answers.

“Are you… on the floor?” Matt asks, unable to keep the staggering confusion out of his voice.

“Just having a sit, nothing wrong with that,” Frank answers. There’s a glassy noise, as though he’s holding a bottle of something, and based on the smell and the slur in his voice it’s most definitely half a bottle of whiskey. Matt’s also fairly sure Frank’s leaning against _his_ door.

“Uh—“ Matt tries.

“Wanna drink?” Frank asks. “I mean, I got started already, I’ll admit that, but it took you a damn _long_ time to get back, Red. Fuck, what’d you do? Walk from uptown?”

Matt can’t help smiling; there’s something pretty hilarious about the way the words just drop out of his mouth underneath that slur. “I went back to work.” 

“Right, right, course,” Frank shakes his head. “Work, work, work.” Frank’s head snaps upright again, clunking back against the door. “So?”

“So what?”

“Want that drink?”

This is a bad idea. This is a very, very bad idea. But what else is he going to do, tell Frank to go back into his apartment and finish that bottle alone? Is he going to listen to him crashing into furniture and swearing at himself for the rest of the night? Besides, maybe Matt wants a drink. Maybe he _really_ wants a drink, and god, that’s exactly what makes it such a bad idea. He should _not_ have a drink. He should get Frank into his own apartment, take the bottle away, and make sure he gets to sleep. That’s the right thing to do. That’s what a good person would do. 

A smile sneaks onto Matt’s face. “Yeah, sure, I’ll have a drink.”

Matt pushes his apartment door open and Frank stumbles in first, catching himself on the wall with one hand and laughing in that low, short way. When they get into the main apartment he pushes the bottle into Matt’s hands.

“Catch up. You’re making me feel like an asshole here.”

Matt smiles, he grabs two glasses off his counter and fills his a good three fingers more. Maybe if he drinks most of the bottle then Frank will slow down. Yeah, that’s logical - totally reasonable line of thinking there, Murdock. Oh well, he’s in it now, right? Sink or swim. Matt throws his head back, draining the first shot without thinking.

“There yah go,” Frank’s voice calls from across the room. He steps forward, towards the windows, then stops, leaning back. “Shit. That sign really is something, man. Christ.”

“What’s it selling tonight?” Matt asks. The taste of whiskey burns against his tongue and he shakes his head a little, feeling the hazy alcohol starting to slip through all the cracks and crannies. “I mean right now.”

Frank consider. “Uh… shampoo, I think. That or weird fetish trips to the rainforest. One of those. Probably.”

Matt laughs. “Probably.”

“Thought you said you were gonna catch up there, Red,” Frank says, turning his way.

Matt should not take another shot. Definitely, absolutely not. 

Matt takes another shot.

Frank frowns in his direction. “Christ, do you really wear tidy lil’ fucking suits like that _every_ day? How many you got?”

Matt furrows his brow, flexing his jaw around the burn of the whiskey. “Uhh…” he closes his eyes, focusing on numbers. “Ten?”

“Shit,” Frank laughs, “I would fucking shoot myself.”

Matt hears himself laugh, “God, you’re so dramatic.”

“ _Dramatic_?” Frank repeats. “You kiddin’ me?” 

“No,” Matt laughs, and wow it’s suddenly _way_ too easy to laugh, “I’m not. You’re completely dramatic. Over the top even.”

“Bullshit,” Frank says, but it sounds like he’s smiling too.

Matt hears his boots turn on the floorboards and Frank collapses on the couch with a sigh, his head falling back as though he’s looking up towards the ceiling. “I think your ceilings are higher than mine.”

“I think that’s architecturally impossible.” Matt walks over, putting the glasses down on the coffee table.

“No, no, seriously. They seem higher.” 

“I think you’re just taller than me.”

“Oh yeah. That’s it.”

Frank doesn’t pick up his glass. Matt holds onto his firmly. He should sit in the chair, on the other side of the coffee table. Matt sits next to Frank on the other side of the couch.

“God…” Frank says, voice suddenly a little more distant, quiet. “I’m a piece of work, huh?”

Matt frowns. “Piece of work?”

“Giving you crap, making you watch my kids, showing up drunk. Man, you must think I’ve really got my shit together.” 

Matt shakes his head. “No one’s got their shit together, Frank.”

“Says the guy with ten suits who knows how to make _alfredo_.”

Matt laughs. “Seriously? Have you _seen_ this place.”

“Yeah, well, garbage furniture isn’t exactly your fault, is it?”

“It’s not that,” Matt says, then pauses. “Okay, it’s not _just_ that. I mean, you have kids, Frank, you have a family.”

“I _had_ a family,” Frank corrects with sudden bitterness. “I don’t know what I have now.”

Matt stares back at him.

“Shit, that…” Frank shakes his head, “that came out wrong. I love my kids, alright, Red. Too damn much. But it’s just… it’s different. Everything’s different now. I don’t have a house, I’ve got an apartment with a fussy-ass neighbor. I don’t have dinners every night at the dining room table, I have the kids three nights a week and whatever take out isn’t too much of a pain to grab on my way home from work… And I don’t have a little girl who’s over the moon if I just read her a story before bed, or a little guy who just wants to be able to ride on my shoulders. I’ve got, hell… I’ve got teenagers, Red. Almost anyways.”

“Well, that’s something,” Matt says. He takes another large sip of his whiskey. “It’s more than this.” He tilts his head around the apartment.

Frank picks his head back up. “Come on.“

“No, seriously, seriously,” Matt insists, feeling his own words start to slur just a bit on the ends. “I don’t… I don’t have anything like that. I have a friend. I have… god, that’s literally it.” He laughs suddenly. “I have one friend. And my fault. I’m just, I’m not… I’m not brave like that.”

Frank’s tone is suddenly serious. “Red, you’ve got more guts than, hell, then most anyone. Seriously. The way you manage - hell, not manage - just _do_. Shit, I couldn’t do that.”

Matt shakes his head. “That’s different. There’s parts… there’s parts of myself that are easier to risk. I’m used to it. I mean… it takes a special kind of brave. To let people into your life, to _have_ people. Like you do. Married. Kids. I can’t imagine that sort of thing.”

Frank laughs. “Fuck, Red, married didn’t exactly stick, and I _made_ my people. Not like they got much of a choice.”

Matt laughs. “Yeah, well, all the same. You seem to be keeping them pretty well.”

Frank grumbles. “Barely.”

“No, no, seriously, seriously,” Matt insists, leaning forward onto his knees. “They… they really love you, Frank. Anyone can see that.”

Frank shakes his head. “I don’t know when it got so hard, Red. They just… I keep feeling like they’re just drifting away, that they don’t _need_ the way they used to. It used to be so easy, so damn easy. All I had to do was throw Junior in a pool once in awhile and make Lisa’s stuffed animals talk to each other and I was a goddamn hero.” 

Matt grins. “You made the stuffed animals talk to each other.”

“Oh yeah. Count Octopus and Lady Bearface. I do a shit English accent by the way.”

Matt laughs into his whiskey. “That’s not actually surprising.”

“I just… shit, I feel like I lost time, time I needed, and there’s no getting it back.”

Matt hesitates on the question but it pops out without his permission. “When you were away? Over… during your service?” 

“Nah, I mean, yeah, of course, that, but what I mean is when I got back. That’s when I really feel like I missed something.”

Frank leans back into the couch. Matt suddenly wonders how dark it is. He never turns on lights, and Frank probably doesn’t even know where they are, hell Matt probably couldn’t even tell him where they are. Maybe the fluorescent advertisements outside are bright enough, painting the orange glow of the street lights with flashing pinks and golds and greens in the darkness of the apartment.

“I didn’t think things would just go right back to the way they were,” Frank continues, voice distant, quiet, as if he’s talking to himself, “even I’m not that much of a dumbass. I just figured it would take time, time to get back to things. But it’s hard, Red, shit, coming home. I mean I know you know that, everyone knows that, but shit… it is. It’s really fucking hard.”

Matt takes another sip of his whiskey, leaning deeper into the couch. It folds around him, comfortable and worn, a little like the voice sitting just at the other end.

“At first it’s like you’re just trying to _not_ make it hard. And Marie, man she doesn’t pull punches, she’s always been hard and honest and I fucking love her for that - but even her, hell, even me…. It’s like you don’t know how you’re allowed to touch each other just yet. Like you think you’re gonna break something so you wear gloves even if you don’t want to, and that’s when you realize things are different, even if you didn’t want them to be, even if you tried as hard as you could to be sure things just snapped back into place.” 

“People change,” Matt says.

“They change and they don’t, Red,” Frank says. “Shit, sometimes I think it’s the stuff that doesn’t change that made it what it was. It was like we saw things that we always knew about before but just managed to shoulder off then. And it was different. She knew what it was to live without it by then, to live without _us_ , and you can’t unsee that, you can’t just turn that clock back.”

“Yeah, but,” Matt tries, furrowing his brow, “that’s not your fault, Frank. That isn’t anyone’s fault.”

Frank sighs. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. But you know, that’s not even it, Red. I’m not sorry, ‘bout what happened between us. Maybe I should be. But we just weren’t… we weren’t like we were, or hell, maybe we were just like we were in too many damn ways. So we split up, and that’s alright, that happens. I’ve made my peace with that. But the time that cost, the time the kids lost… All those late nights when we screamed at each other trying to shove something into a box it didn’t fit in no more, trying to just to force things back together again, it’s like I came out the other side of that storm and suddenly my kids were people… people I don’t even really know now.”

“They just grew up,” Matt says, hoping it sounds reassuring.

“Yeah, no shit,” Frank says, “and I wasn’t there to catch it.”

Matt laughs suddenly. “You don’t catch it, Frank. It just… happens. It happens to everyone, and honestly, I don’t think it’s ever easy. I think you just do your best, you let them know you’re there if they need you, and you just kinda… hold on.”

Frank sounds as though he’s rolled his head in Matt’s direction. “Were you like that? Growing up? You give your folks a hard time?”

“I don’t know.” Matt says. “My dad died when I was twelve, and I never really spent much time with my mom. I was in boarding school a lot.” 

“Shit,” Frank sighs, “today’s just my day, huh? Just keep topping myself.”

“’S fine,” Matt smiles, “seriously. I mean, I totally gave some prep-school teachers hell, if that counts.”

“That was a good call today,” Frank says suddenly. “I don’t know what the hell I would have done with them on my own. Lisa, she likes baseball, going to the games. Least she used to. I don’t know anymore if she’s just pretending to like it cause that’s what we used to do. And Junior, man, I don’t know what the hell he likes anymore.”

“What’d he used to like?” Matt asks.

“Uh,” Frank laughs, “dolphins.”

Matt snorts. “Seriously?”

“Yeah! Yeah it was so weird, man. I got him all these dolphin night-lights and stuffed animals and he would read those books, you know, the ones where girls get rescued by dolphins and pulled to islands and all that shit. Marie took them to California to go see some, when I was still overseas, looked like they loved it, from the photos they sent me. Then I got back and it was just one of those things, you know - wasn’t such a big deal anymore.”

Frank swears suddenly leaning forward to grab his glass before collapsing back again. He takes a sip, leaning back into the couch.

It’s quiet for a moment. The sound of the street leaks up through the slightly open windows.

“You know the funny thing, Red?” Frank says, breaking the silence.

“What’s that?”

Frank lets out a long breath. “It’s not even… it’s not even that she’s getting married. That’s not it. I’m actually, hell, I’m happy for her. And not in the bullshit way where that’s what you’re supposed to say.”

“I don’t think you ever say what you’re supposed to say,” Matt smiles.

“Yeah, just my fucking luck.” 

Matt swallows another gulp. The whiskey swirls comfortable and warm around his head. That scent Frank always brings with him mingles with the smokiness of the whiskey and all the common, familiar smells of his apartment. It’s building a funny feeling around him, something like tension and relaxation at once.

“Then what is it?” Matt asks suddenly.

“What’s what?” Frank turns toward him.

“If you’re not upset she’s getting married… why are you upset?”

“Shit,” Frank sighs, dragging a hand down the full length of his face. “It’s… it’s that she didn’t tell me. It’s that she told the kids _not_ to tell me. What’s that about?”

“I don’t know,” Matt says honestly.

“That’s what really gets me man, that she somehow thought I had to get ‘handled’ through something like that, like I wouldn’t be just fine. Does she really think my life’s that much of a mess? That her finding some goddamn happiness would send me into a tailspin?”

“Maybe she just wasn’t ready to tell you.”

“Yeah, alright, I hear that, but making the kids keep secrets, Red? Making Junior feel like shit because he just said what he was thinking? That’s not alright.”

“Yeah, no, I didn’t say I thought it was. I just… I don’t know, maybe it’s not that she thought you couldn’t handle it, maybe she needed to work herself up to telling you. Maybe she didn’t want you to hear it from your kids.”

“She’s never been the kind to avoid biting a bullet,” Frank says.

“I don’t know,” Matt says shaking his head. “I really don’t. I don’t know her, hell, I barely know you. I just know - like you said - people change, and they don’t. And I know that caring about people, really caring… it takes a special kind of courage.”

Frank’s quiet for a long moment. Matt thinks he’s finished whatever whiskey was in the glass. 

“It is hard,” Frank says eventually, slowly. “But not the way I expected, not in the way they tell you about.”

“What is?”

“Turning back into a ‘civilian’.”

“You mean being back from a war?”

“Yeah,” Matt hears Frank swallow. “It’s… hell, they make you think that war’s this shit show, that it’s this hot mess that’s gonna scramble your brain and leave you hollowed right out. But that’s not it, least that wasn’t it for me.” 

Matt focuses, trying to ease the drunken haze away from his brain. “Then what was it?”

“It’s this world, Red. It’s the _normal_ you come back to that’s fucking traumatizing.”

Matt frowns. “What’d you mean?” 

“I mean, it’s the fucking hundred-thousand shades of grey that we’ve got to see things through for no good reason.”

“You mean rather than just black and white? Enemies and allies? Missions and objectives?”

“Man,” Frank shakes his head, “things just make more sense out there, and hell, maybe that makes me sound crazy, but it’s true. You go out. You kill the bad guys. And they are bad guys, Red, least any of the ones I shot. They’re real bad. And so you’ve got orders: you protect your buddies and you take out the enemy. Simple.”

Matt adjusts where he’s sitting. He can’t help it. Just the idea of taking life away that easily makes him feel uncomfortable in a way he’s not totally sure he understands. Maybe what makes him uncomfortable is that it makes a certain kind of horrible sense.

“Then you get back here,” Frank continues, “and you’re strung right up, thousands of little wires and pulls that check your trigger and keep you steady. Shit, Red, I see guys walking past me in crisp tidy suits every damn day who deserve the kill order more than any of the fuckers hiding in those mountains.” 

“You really don’t like suits, huh?”

“I’m serious,” Frank’s voice is suddenly darker, heavier. “At least those assholes back there looked you in the eyes as they tried to blow your brains out. They _hated_. Open and real and were ready to fight for it, right until the end. But I get back here and there’s so much goddamn pain and bullshit and the pieces of shit responsible don’t even have the fucking soul to hate. They just _want_. They want and they need, and they gain and gain and gain and there’s jackshit anyone can do about it.”

Matt frowns. “There is something you can do about it.”

“You think so?”

“I have to,” Matt says simply. “I wouldn’t show up to work everyday if I didn’t.”

Frank laughs, that rough honest sound. “God, you really fucking believe that, don’t you?” 

Matt looks towards him, open, honest. “Yeah. I really do.”

Frank shakes his head. “Hell, well, keep after it, Red. Shit, it’s better than the cynical crap bouncing around my head everyday. I just…” Matt hears his knuckles open and close against his knee. “Not wanting to come back, that’s the hard part, liking the way the world works when it’s just black and white. The hard part’s not knowing how to find your way through all these goddamn layers. They muddy the water and all you want to do is dump the lot of it out and start clean, but then you realize… there’s nothing but muddy water left. So we just gotta make do.”

Matt sighs, then leans forward and raises his glass with half a smile. “Well… to making do?”

Frank lets out half a laugh before sitting up and grabbing his own glass. “Yeah. Sure, Red. To making do.”

Their glasses clink neatly and Matt takes a long sip. He can feel himself steadily, slowly losing precise control over where his limbs fall. He’s got one leg up on the couch between them, the arm that isn’t holding his drink draped over the back of the sofa. He finds himself wondering just how far away Frank’s sitting. If he scooted his toe closer, how quickly would he hit his leg? Hit those jeans stretched over thighs so casually tossed to either side in the same drunken languor Matt can feel draping over his limbs.

“Hey,” Frank says suddenly. “What ever happened with that girl?”

“Girl?” Matt looks towards him. “What girl?” 

“The other night, from the bar,” he thinks Frank is smiling, “the one with the garbage reflexes.” 

“Oh,” and jesus, he’d honestly almost forgotten about that. “I don’t know—“ 

“Ah, come on,” Frank grins. “You must be sick as hell of listening to me spill my guts here. Tell me how that went?”

There’s something funny in his tone, something a little less sincere than he normally sounds, like there’s something hiding underneath that grin.

Matt shrugs. “She was great, is great. But… it was just one of those, you know, short term things.”

Frank sounds like he’s raised his eyebrows. “That usual for you, Red?”

Matt lets out a little huff of a laugh, and god, he’s way too drunk for this conversation. “Uhh, honestly? Yeah, pretty much.”

Frank’s leaned forward again, taking another sip. His voice is back to pure honesty when he speaks again, rough and painfully sincere. “You like it like that? Short term?”

Matt opens his mouth around the easy answer. Then shuts it. He’s quiet for a longer moment.

“No,” he says finally. “No, I don’t like it. But I’m not afraid of it either.”

Frank smiles. “Takes a certain kind of courage, huh?”

Matt swallows. He feels the weight of the glass in his hand. All the usual easy ways out of that question flit across his mind, but there’s something so painfully honest about a guy like him sitting on Matt’s couch telling him everything about his world as if he just trusts him, impossibly, improbably, but is ready to tell him the plain, honest truth all the same. Can he really just sit there and offer anything less than that?

“I managed it once,” Matt says suddenly, “being that brave, letting someone in.” 

“Let me guess,” Frank says, “didn’t go so well?”

“How’d you know?” Matt teases.

Frank chuckles, grabbing his glass again. “So? What happened?”

Matt swallows. Suddenly his shoulders feel much tighter than they had just moments ago. “I loved her. A lot. More than I knew I could. She made me… I could be myself around her, in a way that I just couldn’t with other people. She could see… she could see all the things I’d ever wished I could do and would give up anything for and tugged them right out into the sunlight.” 

“Sounds interesting.”

“Yeah,” Matt almost smiles. “Yeah, it was.”

“Must have gotten you into some trouble.” 

“It got me into the hospital. Her, too,” Matt says. “She was… together we were combustible, out of control. There was an accident. I was unconscious for a week in the hospital. Someone else was, too, someone who got caught in the crossfire. They were unconscious for longer.”

“How long?” Frank asks.

Matt swallows. “Three years.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” Matt takes another sip. “She came to my hospital room, and she just wanted to go right back to the way things were. I told her I couldn’t, and she just… vanished.”

Frank leans back. He feels closer somehow. Matt wonders if his arm is draped over the back of the couch too, just like Matt’s.

“Do you regret it?” Frank asks. “Letting her go?”

Matt laughs. Suddenly it’s so easy to be honest. “Yeah. Sometimes. Sometimes I really do.”

“Yeah, well, sorry to break it to you, Red, but that’s what makes us human.”

“Regret?”

“All of it. The whole ugly mess.” And with that Frank tips the side of his glass against Matt’s with a clink. “I’ll drink to that.”

“To the whole ugly mess?”

“Damn right.” 

Matt smiles. He follows suit, letting the last of the whiskey burn all the way down.

“ ’S her loss anyways,” Frank says.

Matt blinks. “What?”

“God, I’m tired,” Frank says. It sounds like he stretches out before sinking even deeper into the couch. “Hey, Red?”

“Mm?” Matt answers. He must be tired too. Suddenly his eyes feel a good deal heavier than they should. 

“Why’d yah always keep those glasses on?”

Matt tries to focus. “What’d you mean?”

“You’re just always putting them right on. Like you don’t like not having ‘em.”

“I don’t,” Matt says honestly.

“Why not?”

Matt feels his foot slip forward as his legs lose their ability to stay totally upright. His foot hits the side of Frank’s leg. Frank doesn’t move. He probably doesn’t even notice.

“I don’t like to think about how it looks. Just staring, not being able to meet someone’s eyes.”

“Lemme see,” Frank says, and his voice is suddenly so soft, so calm that it doesn’t sound even a bit like a demand, just a simple obvious thing to do.

Matt’s too tired to think of reasons to not listen. He pulls them off his nose, blinking just a few times.

Frank’s quiet.

“That bad?” Matt asks.

Frank clears his throat. “Oh yeah, terrible.”

Matt grins. “Told you.” He moves to put them back on but suddenly there’s a hand on his.

Matt stops instantly. He’s not sure why, but the rough fingers against his seem to make every part of him go stock still. It doesn’t last long. Frank takes the glasses, gently, carefully, and puts them on the coffee table.

“’S fine,” he says, still slurring on the edges, “ ’s good.”

Matt’s not sure what to do, but he’s tired enough that maybe doing nothing is just fine.

“Karen’s right, yah know?” Frank mutters. “I’m _really_ not good at this.”

Matt feels his eyes shutting. “Good at what?”

“You know…, I don’t even like Metallica all that much.”

Matt blinks. “What?”

Frank laughs, exhausted and open. “I like goddamn seventies funk. That’s what I normally work out to. I just thought the other stuff would piss you off more.”

“Are you serious?”

“Oh yeah. A-hundred percent.” 

Matt hears himself laughing along with him. “God. Wanna hear something funnier?”

“Why the fuck not?”

Matt’s still grinning, tone lazy. “I don’t even care. Actually, right now, I’m pretty glad you’re my jackass neighbor.”

“Yeah, well, hate to break it to you, Red, I actually don’t mind it much either.” Frank’s voice is more slur than speech at this point. Matt wonders idly if he might even be mostly asleep already.

“Yeah?” Matt asks despite himself. “Why’s that?”

“Well, you’ve got one hell of an ass on you, Red.”

Matt lets out a shocked burst of laughter. “What’s that?”

Frank’s chuckling to himself, voice hazy and lost, as if he hasn’t even heard Matt -maybe he’s even forgotten he’s in the room. “Man, seriously, if the guys in my old unit could see the piece of twink ass living across the hall, they’d beat me fucking blue for being such a dumbass, Christ.”

And wow, maybe he really is asleep. Matt stares drunkenly up at the ceiling. He mouths “twink ass” a few times to himself.

It’s quiet for a long time. 

“Frank?” Matt calls.

Frank makes a grunt back. He sounds like he’s closed his eyes. His leg is warm where it presses against Matt’s foot. 

“You awake?”

Another grunt. Matt sneak his toes just under the warmth of his thigh.

“I figured it out,” Matt says. 

He’s sure his eyes are shut now. He’s not even sure if he’s really awake. There’s a heavy hand resting on his shin in a way that’s far too comfortable. 

“It’s snow. That other smell,” Matt murmurs. “You kinda smell like snow.”

The hand on his shin gives a little pat. “Whatever you say, Red. Whatever you say.”


	7. Chapter 7

Matt opens his eyes. 

Is it morning? It must be. The sound of the city seeps in around him: cars rushing past the building outside, raised voices calling back and forth on the street, pigeons taking flight off the fire escape. Just like any other morning.

Matt blinks, trying to focus. He moves to sit up and pain snaps into his head like a slap across the face.

“Grh—!“ Matt falls back down instantly, both palms on his temples. 

He realizes he’s bounced on his way back down. He tosses one hand down experimentally. Sheets. Huh. He’s in his bed. When did that happen?

Matt tries to focus the pounding out of his head. Pieces of the night flit in and out; the weight of the whiskey in his hand and burn on his tongue, that hazy sleepy feeling heavy over his eyes, laughter in his mouth, his toes just pressed under the weight of a warm leg.

“Oh boy,” Matt groans, rolling over. It feels like he’s still wearing a t-shirt and boxers. Maybe he just wandered in here when he was too drunk to remember it and fell asleep again?

Something clatters out in the kitchen. Matt sits up again. There’s a smell wafting through the apartment: coffee, and something else - bacon, maybe. No, bacon definitely.

His skull pounding all the while, Matt manages to make his way out of bed. He finds a pair of jeans and shuffle his way to the bedroom door, wincing all the while as his head tries to convince him to just lie down and never move ever again. Matt pulls open his bedroom door and wanders into the living room, catching himself against the back of the nearest chair. The sounds from the kitchen continue, shuffling of plates and pans and the sizzling of meat and eggs.

“Uh,” Matt tries, “good morning?”

There’s a slightly louder clatter followed by a swear.

“Uh, yeah, hey,” Frank’s voice calls back.

Matt takes a few steps forward. “Are you… making breakfast?”

Frank sounds like he barely knows himself. “Yeah, well, seemed like a decent thing to do. Shit, I don’t know.”

Matt smiles. “Is there more coffee?”

Frank grins back. “The rest of all this might be total shit, but good coffee is a guarantee.”

Matt heads over towards the counter as he listens to Frank open and shut cupboards looking for the right one then finally snatch a mug and put it down on the countertop.

Frank slides the warmth of the cup filled with coffee into the space in front of Matt as Matt sits down on the stool with a sharp wince.

“Ah, shit, right. Here,” Frank says, putting something else down next to the coffee. Matt moves his fingers towards whatever it is experimentally. Pills. Two of them. 

“Thanks,” Matt says. He tosses them back, washing it down. He wasn’t kidding, the coffee is amazing.

“What time is it?” Matt asks.

Frank twists as if he’s checking his phone. “Uh, eight-thirty.”

Matt looks up. “Don’t you have to go into the precinct?”

“I’ll be a little late. I put in enough goddamn hours. Don’t worry about it.”

Matt hears him slide a pan across the stove, grabbing plates from the counter behind him.

Matt shakes his head. “You didn’t have to—“

“Yeah, well, you didn’t have to let some drunken asshole who almost passed out in front of your door inside, either. Alright?”

“Yeah,” Matt smiles, “guess not. How’s your head?”

Frank takes a sip of his coffee. “Fucking horrible.”

“No kidding.” Matt sniffs. “Bacon and eggs?”

“Yeah. And I got my own stuff, from next door, too, alright. I don’t want you thinking I’m even more of an asshole, using up all your groceries.”

Matt looks in his direction. “I don’t think you’re an asshole, Frank.”

Frank snorts a laugh. “You sure about that, Red?”

Matt can’t help smiling. “Well…, at least not a total asshole.”

“Yeah, well, I appreciate that,” Frank says, a smile in his voice.

He slides a plate over to Matt, and a fork after it. Matt wraps his fingers around the fork, lifting it to prod at whatever’s on the plate experimentally.

“It’s not fucking poisoned, Red,” Frank says, taking his own bite.

“Not even over-salted?” Matt asks.

“Can’t promise that.”

Matt takes a bite. It’s eggs, eggs that are surprisingly not overcooked.

It’s quiet for a minute. Matt opens his mouth to break the silence, but Frank beats him to it.

“I’m sorry.”

Matt looks up. “For what?”

“Shit, Red,” Frank shakes his head with a small laugh. “Could say… sorry for the crappy breakfast, sorry for crashing at your house like a drunken mess, sorry for being a shitty neighbor. But that’s not it.”

“You’re not sorry about that list?” Matt asks with half a smile.

“I am. I mean that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what’d you mean?”

Frank looks at him, he can feel it even though he doesn’t see it: that unflinching firm gaze. 

“What I mean is,” Frank says slowly, “Karen was right. And I’m sorry I’m not good at this.”

Matt’s mouth suddenly feels dry. He puts his fork down lightly against the plate. “Yeah, well,” he clears his throat, “me, too.”

Frank shifts. “What’s that now?”

“I’m bad at this, too,” Matt says softly.

Frank snorts. “Bullshit.”

“No, no,” Matt laughs, “seriously, I really am, hell… I’m probably worse at it than you are.”

“Well,” Frank says gently, “maybe that works out alright then, doesn’t it.”

It’s quiet for another moment, but strangely it’s more comfortable now. It feels warm against Matt’s cheek; the sun must be coming in through the tall windows.

“How’d I end up in my room last night?” Matt asks suddenly.

“What? You think I put you in there?”

“Did you?”

Frank laughs. “Nah, I uh, I accidentally kicked you off the couch in my sleep and you must have gone in on your own.”

“Seriously?” 

“Pretty sure.”

Matt grins suddenly. “Do you seriously normally work out to seventies funk?”

Frank’s attention sharpens. “What?”

Matt grins. “That’s what you said last night.”

“Shit,” Frank shakes his head with a laugh. “What the hell else did I say?”

Matt shrugs. “You told me I have a nice ass.”

Frank drops his head. “Jesus fucking christ…”

“No, no, I mean, it’s understandable,” Matt insists, “I’ve heard it before.”

“And a smug ass to boot, huh?” Frank grins. “Well…, least it makes this easier.”

“Makes what easier?”

“Want to get dinner?” Frank asks.

Matt’s heart picks up speed in his chest. “Like, with your kids, here, or—“

“No,” Frank says smoothly. “Not like that.”

“Oh.” Matt clears his throat. “Look, I, uh, I said I wasn’t good at this.”

“That a no?”

“Uh,” Matt tried to focus. The smell of good coffee and bacon wafts up around him. “No. That’s not a no.”

“Then how about tonight?”

Matt takes a deep breath. “Could we take it easier on the whiskey?”

“Whatever you want, Red.”

Matt feels himself flush slightly. “That would be, yeah, that’s good, ‘cause I think my head’s actually about to fall off without my permission.” 

Suddenly Frank’s hand is on his cheek, palm curled around the side of his head, big and comfortable and still warm from his mug.

“Nah,” Frank says, “it’ll stay put.”

His hand slides away before Matt can move to catch it. 

“I should go into work,” Frank says.

“Yeah,” Matt tries to shake himself out of it, listening as Frank puts a few things in the sink and turns towards the door. “Me, too.”

“Don’t worry, I kept things clean in there,” Frank says, gesturing to the kitchen over his shoulder as he heads down the hall to the door. “I’m not that big of a dick.”

Matt clears his throat, uncomfortable. “No, I mean, yeah, right, good. Good.”

Matt follows him to the door. He hears Frank open it and Matt catches it as it swings open. Frank steps into the hall. 

Frank turns back towards him. “So, tonight then. Yeah?”

Matt feels himself smile. “Yeah.”

Frank nods. “See yah, Red.”

“Yeah. See yah.”

The door swings shut. 

Matt stares at it for a few moments, trying to wrap his head around any of this and completely failing, and maybe, ultimately, that’s for the best. He turns to get dressed with a sigh. 

There’s a knock at the door. 

Matt stops. He turns back, and cautiously, he pulls the door back open.

“Frank?” It feels like him on the other side: the smell, the sense of space. “Did you forget some—“

The warmth of Frank’s hand slides up the side of his face again, he takes one solid step forward, and Matt barely has time to blink before he’s kissing him.

A soft, surprised sound escapes Matt’s throat and Frank’s hand loosens, as if he thinks he’s done something wrong, as if he’s about to pull away again, and suddenly Matt’s hand is tight in his hair, pulling him as close as he dares.

Frank eases into him instantly with a thick inhale, kissing him back fully and without hesitation. It’s a rough around the edges sort of kiss, simple in a way, and more than a little clumsy, but there’s something, something intoxicating in how everything under Matt’s hands is so hard and unyielding, like warm solid stone, but the mouth on his is softer than he ever would have expected. Matt’s mind is flooded with memories of the feeling of those lips under the trace of his fingertips, and as Frank’s free hand tightens on his hip Matt drops his jaw open hungrily, sliding his hand up and around to dig his fingers into Frank’s short, thick hair.

Frank makes a small sound, something Matt doesn’t even hear so much as feels, just a rumble against his chest. Frank’s suddenly walking him back, just into the apartment, pushing him against the wall of the hall as his broad hands slide from Matt’s hips to his thighs. Matt feels himself roll with it so easily, unable to resist letting himself leave the ground just enough to know that Frank’s holding him against that wall, with the strength of his hands under Matt’s thighs and the heat of Frank’s mouth pushing open and hungry and fresh into his.

Frank kisses him again, and again, and then with a shaky breath Frank pulls back, just enough to rest his forehead against Matt’s. 

They stay like that, for a moment, then another, breath cluster and warm between them. Finally, Frank takes half a step back, gently letting Matt’s feet hit the ground again.

Matt’s still got a hand on the back of his neck, fingers grazing the short crop of his hair. Matt can feel the weight of Frank’s chest, the weight breathing in and out, inches away from his. He feel how close Frank’s hips still are, how easily he could just urge his own forward an inch, maybe two—

Frank runs a thumb over Matt’s lower lip. It feels like he’s smiling. “See you tonight, yeah, Red?”

Matt swallows. “Yeah,” he croaks. “Yeah, right.”

Frank takes another step back, sliding his hand up to sweep Matt’s hair back into place. “Yeah.” He shuts the door behind him.

It takes Matt longer than it should to pick himself off the wall. 

It takes even longer for him to finally manage to pull himself into work, after a _far_ too long morning shower and ensuring Frank didn’t accidentally light any part of the kitchen on fire. Matt hurries up the stairs to his office, swearing to himself all the while. Here he is again: late, and with Frank to blame, just in a whole new sort of context, a context that’s still making his neck feel a little too warm and his collar a little too tight.

Matt clears his throat. He gets a hand around the cool doorknob to the office and pushes it open.

“See, he’s here,” Foggy’s voice says instantly. 

It’s a different voice than usual, it’s the voice he uses when he’s trying to be as comforting as he can. 

“Matt,” Foggy continues, and there’s no hiding the worry in that tone. “Our client’s here to see us.”

It takes Matt a few minutes to get oriented, managing to make his way to the desk. He feels a hand offered to him and he wraps his around it. Carla Ruiz’s sister. It has to be. Her fingers feel weak, and a little shaky. She doesn’t shake his hand, just gives it a firm desperate squeeze. He puts a second hand on top of the first and holds it there for a moment before letting go. 

“Miss Ruiz,” he starts. “I’m truly sorry that we haven’t been able to help you more.”

She sniffs. Matt realizes she might have been crying. “Does that… does that mean it’s over?” she asks. “You’re giving up?”

Matt’s gut twists under him. 

“As I’ve been telling Miss Ruiz,” Foggy says, and god, he sounds exhausted, “we’ve tried everything we can think of up until now….”

As he’s “been” telling Miss Ruiz. When did she get here? Was she waiting for Foggy when he first came in, early this morning? And where was Matt during all of this? Passed out with a hangover and getting breakfast made for him, all while this poor woman watches someone she loves slip away and Foggy does what he can to comfort her. The sudden pang of guilt washes over him like cold water.

“Please,” she says, turning to Foggy, “you can’t give up on her yet; _I_ can’t give up on her yet.”

“Miss Ruiz—“ Foggy starts again.

“Sophia,” she corrects.

“Sophia,” Foggy amends, “your sister, Carla, she has _forbidden_ us from going to talk to her. Last time we were there she almost kicked you out, too.”

“She’s stubborn. She’s always been stubborn. She had to be, when we were little. She didn’t let anyone push us around when they wanted to. She took care of me. I… I have to try and take care of her. God,” she gasps, something between a laugh and a sob, “I’m even terrible at that. I always was.”

Matt takes a knee, right beside her. “We’re not giving up yet. You shouldn’t either.”

He can feel Foggy’s dismay escalating behind the desk. He ignores it.

“We _will_ find something. There has to be something left to try,” Matt says.

“That’s all I’m asking,” she says instantly, frantically. “That’s all, just, just keep trying, just don’t give up. Please.”

“We won’t,” Matt says, smiling tightly but firmly. “I promise.”

She puts her hand back on his, squeezing it tight. Her voice is quiet: tired, but resilient. “Thank you.”

Four hours later Foggy is still yelling at him. 

“What were you thinking, Matt?” Foggy continues, leaning back in his chair as the air conditioners hum outside their open windows from the offices on all sides. “I was trying to help her, I was trying to get her to an okay place with this.”

“All I did was promise we’d try, Foggy, we can do that,” Matt answers, his pacing carrying him back and forth across the floorboards.

“We’ve _been_ doing that,” Foggy insists, “we’ve been trying and look where it’s gotten us!”

“So we try again. We try harder.”

“You can’t just keep trying harder and harder, Matt. There’s limits. Like reality.”

“There’s got to be something,” Matt insists, “something we haven’t tried. Did you find anything out about Sosa?”

“Actually…, yeah,” Foggy answers hesitantly.

“That’s great!”

“But I don’t see how it’s going to help if we can’t even _talk_ to her!”

“We can’t know that. Just tell me what you found,” Matt says.

“He was overseas, too,” Foggy says, “with her.”

“They were in the same unit?”

“Yeah. Two years ago.”

“That’s something, that’s got to be something,” Matt says, picking up the pace of his steps.

“What? So they were soldiers together over there and soldiers together when they came home. Pretty sad if you ask me.”

Something suddenly clicks in Matt’s head. “No, no, Foggy, that’s it! That’s exactly it.”

“ _What_ is exactly it?”

“They didn’t stop, just like you said…” Matt closes his eyes trying to focus. His mind is running a mile a minute, the feeling of Sophia Ruiz’s hand tight on his, the sound of her voice: _”Please.”_

“It’s hard,” Matt says steadily, opening his eyes again, “it’s hard coming back from that. Everyone knows that, but not really. You don’t just turn back into a civilian.”

“Yeah,” Foggy says, “yeah, I can see that… Hell, a lot of people can these days.”

“They see things in black and white, over there,” Matt continues, keeping his focus sharp, hardly hearing Foggy at all. “Things are simple there. Complete the mission. Kill the bad guys. And they get back here, and what do they find?” What were those words again? He closes his eyes again, pulling them back. “A hundred thousand shades of grey with no way to sort through them. Over there you get your orders. You protect your buddies, and you take out the enemy. That’s how it works. Simple.”

“Not that simple back here….” Foggy mutters.

“Exactly! For anyone who goes through that, for them, for Carla, it’s not wanting to come back that’s the hard part,” The words come back to him, suddenly sharp and clear. “It’s liking the way the world’s in black and white that’s hard. It’s not knowing how to find your way back through all the layers. It’s thinking that the normal world is just muddied water, and all you want to do is dump the lot of it out and start clean, but you know there’s nothing but muddy water left to fill it up again. And where does that leave her, where does that leave them?”

“I don’t know, Matt,” Foggy says quietly, “where does that leave them?”

Matt looks back at him. “Damaged.”

“Damaged?” 

“That mindset, that… that trauma - you don’t just snap back from that with a whole mind and a full sense of agency. Do you?”

“Agency,” Foggy snaps his fingers, “that’s where you’re going?”

“Maybe, maybe,” Matt wets his lips, something holds in his throat but he hears Sophia’s voice, feels Carla’s arms knitted tight over her chest alone in that prison for tomorrow and the next day and every day after that. “Maybe,” Matt continues, “maybe she doesn’t have her agency. Maybe anyone who’s gone through that can’t look the world full in the face anymore. Maybe… she can’t plead guilty.” 

“You mean… “ Foggy starts, “we argue she doesn’t have the requisite state of mind to plead? We say she’s, what, ‘traumatized’? That she can’t plead guilty because she doesn’t know what she’s really saying, because she can’t know because of what she’s been through.”

Matt swallows. “Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.”

Foggy whistles. “Shit, I mean, it’s a long shot, like a _really_ long shot—“

“It’s something. That’s what we were after, wasn’t it? Something?”

“Matt…,“ Foggy starts.

“Listen, listen,” Matt cuts in starting to pace again, quickly back and forth, “I know it’s far fetched, but you heard her sister, we have to try something, and this is worth it, isn’t it? Look, we can go down tomorrow, to the judge’s, first thing in the morning—“

“No, Matt—“

“We can argue it! I know we can, we can probably even find a psychological testimony if we get on the phone tonight and—“

“Matt!” Foggy insists. 

Matt falls silent. The energy in the room has changed somehow. Something’s wrong. 

“You, uh,” Foggy says awkwardly, “I think someone’s here to see you.”

Matt turns towards the doorway to the office behind them. He hadn’t even heard the door open, he’d been so caught up in the sudden rush of ideas and thoughts and… he hadn’t even heard. 

“That’s alright.” It’s Frank’s voice. Rough and distant from the door and solid as stone. Matt feels his gaze on him for just a moment. “I was just leaving.”

Frank turns, shutting the door behind him.

“Shit,” Matt swears. He hurries across the floor, snatching the door knob and tugging it back open.

“Matt!” Foggy calls but it’s too late. Matt’s already rushing after the solid sound of Frank’s steps down the old worn floor as the door swings shut behind him.

“Frank!” Matt calls, “Frank! Hold up, wait— just wait a second.”

To his shock he actually does. The solid steps come to a stop and Matt stumbles to a stop as well, trying to catch his breath.

“That, I—,” he blinks. “What— what are you doing here?”

Frank’s voice remains unmoving, cold. “We didn’t pick a time. For tonight. I don’t have your number. Thought I’d just stop by and ask. Karen’s waiting in the patrol car downstairs.”

“Oh,” Matt stares, trying to make these pieces line up right in his mind. “Look, I was just—“

“I’m glad I was helpful,” Frank interrupts.

“What?”

“I’m glad all of that, everything I said, everything I told you— I’m glad it’s gonna be such a big help when you lay it all out in front of a judge first thing in the morning.”

“Frank—“ Matt tries.

Frank shakes his head with a hard laugh. “I can’t fucking believe what a goddamn moron I am, Red. Honestly I thought— god, I don’t know what the hell I thought, I’m just glad to know now, sooner than later I was wrong.”

Matt can’t help the defensive edge that snaps into his voice. “Wrong about what?”

“What the hell do you think?”

“Look,” Matt pushes back, “maybe I shouldn’t have used those words, but I’m not betraying anything here. You… you helped me see something, that’s all.”

“ _That’s all_?” Frank repeats.

“Shit, I didn’t— I didn’t mean it like that,” Matt shakes his head, “I just mean… you were right, last night, and I see that, and now it helps. I mean it lets me see that that truth might be able to help someone.”

“Help how, exactly?” Frank snaps. “You gonna march down there and tell some judge that this girl is out of her goddamn mind? That she’s so broken that she can’t even decide if she’s committed a damn crime or not? You think that’s what happens over there, huh, Red? You think we come back with our eggs scrambled so bad we don’t get to decide what happens to our own lives?”

“I didn’t mean it universally,” Matt says. “Just—“

“Just what? Just the crack-pot shit that comes out of my mouth at one in the morning makes you feel anyone who thinks what I do can’t be trusted with their own baggage?”

“God,” Matt swears, “you’re taking this completely out of context—”

“No, I think I’m the only one who’s ever been taking this goddamn mess in context. I _know_ what’s knocking around that girl’s head. Not you, not that sister, not Karen: _I_ know. I’m the only one who gives her enough damn respect to let her make up her own mind. And you want to just take that away, rip it right away and call it something clinical?”

“That’s not—“

“Don’t do that, you hear me,” Frank says, teeth tight, “don’t you dare take away the last bit of control that people like her have left. Don’t you dare just slap some label on it and ship it away.”

“It’s not a label,” Matt insists, “Frank, PTSD isn’t—“

“It isn’t yours to use when and where you want,” Frank levels. “It deserves some goddamn understanding, not someone saying you don’t get to choose your own future.”

“What future?” Matt suddenly yells. “A jail cell? An underfunded library, shit food, and if she’s lucky two hours in the yard every other day?”

“It’s still her choice. Hers.”

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” Matt pushes back. “ _Maybe_ she doesn’t know the difference. Maybe it’s not her fault in the end. Maybe it’s not yours.”

Frank takes a step closer and this time Matt takes a step back. He can’t help it, the rage suddenly rolling off of him is suffocating. “You telling me I don’t know my own damn mind?”

Matt tightens his jaw. “I don’t know. All I know is what you told me. I know it’s hard. And I don’t think that’s your fault. I don’t think it’s hers.”

Frank’s anger presses close and tight. “She pulled her triggers. I pulled mine.”

“It’s not black and white, Frank,” Matt says, “not anymore. I don’t know if it ever was. Maybe that’s what makes it so hard.”

Frank turns away with a sharp shake of his head. “Yeah, well I hope my testimony was a big damn help, councillor, real glad I could be of service.”

He keeps heading down the hall. Matt opens his mouth to yell after him, and then, slowly, he shuts it again. The door to the stairway opens, then shuts. Matt stands there for a moment, alone in the sudden silence of the hallway.

When he finally pulls the door back open to their office Foggy is waiting. “Matt, I’m sorry, shit, I tried to—“

Matt holds up a hand with a small shake of his head. Foggy falls off into silence. 

Matt finds his way back to the desk, pulling out the chair and taking a seat again. He suddenly feels tired. Really, very tired.

“So,” Foggy starts again, cautiously, “should I…?” he trails off.

“Should you what?” Matt asks.

“Should I call the judge?”

Matt sighs. He shakes his head slowly. “No. No, I don’t think so.” He looks up to him. “Do you?”

Foggy let’s out a long breath. “No… No, I don’t. It’s not—“ 

“—It’s not the right thing to do.”

Foggy swallows. “…Yeah.”

Matt leans back again with a low, long groan. Voices and sensations crowd through his mind. He closes his eyes tight against them. 

Finally, he sits up again, voice tired. “Want to get some dinner?”

Foggy smiles weakly. “Yeah, of course.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll update sooner than usual with the last chapters since I know it's a bit of a bummer ending to this one. Happy ending coming right up - promise. Thanks!


	8. Chapter 8

Matt wakes up on time. 

On the bedside table his phone sounds the 7:00AM alarm with friendly little chirps. He blinks up at the ceiling, not quite willing to move. Not just yet.

The window by his bed is open six inches, sending in the spring warm breeze inside, smelling of carbon monoxide, mulch, and rain on asphalt. Someone yells at someone across the street to not forget celery. A car squeals to a halt as someone else swears in an accent he doesn’t recognize. 

Matt wonders vaguely what the ceiling up above looks like. White plaster most likely, but hell, for all he knows there could just be a giant “Fuck You, Dumbass” written all across it in different shapes and sizes.

He finally reaches over, sliding the coolness of the phone into his hand. He turns off the alarm and gently puts it back down. He listens to the refreshed silence. Carefully. But it doesn’t matter; it’s just the same. Traffic. Distant voices. And through the wall, nothing but silence.

Eventually, with a sigh, Matt sits up and gets out of bed.

When Matt arrives at the station Foggy and Sophia are waiting for him. He steps up to them from the curb and Sophia puts a hand on his arm. “Thank you, again.” 

“No need,” Matt answers. “It’s our job.”

“Ready?” Foggy asks. “Last day: one last shot.” 

“What if she doesn’t let us in?” Sophia asks.

“Then we ask again,” Matt says. “And again.”

“That’s right,” Foggy confirms.

Sophia takes a deep breath.

“Ready?” Matt asks.

She nods firmly. Foggy pushes open the doors to the precinct and together the three of them head inside.

Matt feels the space change around them: the hum of the lights, the feet clicking on the tiles. His stomach feels tight behind his ribs but he ignores it. It doesn’t matter today; it can’t matter today. 

Foggy reaches the front desk first. “We’re here to speak to our client, Carla Ruiz.”

“Man, didn’t you get fired?” the constable’s voice comes back over the counter.

“We’d like to ask to see her again. That’s all.”

“Look, Nirvana, I don’t exactly have running favors for inmates on my to-do list today.”

“Can you just please—“ Foggy starts.

“Anyway,” the constable breaks in, “looks like someone’s already talking to her.”

“What?” Matt asks suddenly.

Hurried steps are rushing towards them from inside the station, clicking fast one after another. Someone stops themselves on the desk with one hand and a gasp. “Matt!”

Matt turns, eyes widening in surprise. “Karen?”

“Wait,” Foggy turns to the constable. “What do you means someone’s in there? If it’s those goddamn liars from the D.A. again—“

“Sergeant Castle just signed out of the interview room,” the constable says.

Matt swivels. “What?”

“That’s what —I mean,” Karen gasps, out of breath, “I didn’t know what he was doing; he just barged right in there and didn’t tell me why and shut the door, and —shit!”

“I don’t understand. Who—“ Sophia starts.

“We’re going in there,” Matt says firmly. “Now.”

“Y’all need to sign in before—“ the constable says.

“They’re with me,” Karen cuts in. “It’s fine, Connie. Let’s go.”

They follow her quickly through the halls until she stops at a door, pushing it open.

“It’s the observation room. He locked the door to the actual interview room after him.”

“What the hell is going on?” Foggy asks. “Wait —what is _he_ doing in there?!”

Matt thinks the opposite wall must be a two way mirror looking out into the interview room. He hears Foggy walking towards it with Sophia close behind. Dimly, fuzzy from speakers, the voices from the other room come through as well.

“What are they doing?” Matt asks Karen. She’s standing at his side, further back from the glass than the others.

She shakes her head. “He just said there was something he had to do.”

“Alright,” Foggy says firmly, “I’m stopping this right now. No one’s saying anything until we’re in there.” 

He raises his knuckles to the glass but Matt’s hears himself call out. “Wait—“

Foggy pauses, hand ready to bang against the two way mirror, “What? Why?”

“Just…” Matt tries to think, tries to focus. “Just… Just wait. Alright?”

“What’re you, a cop?” Carla’s voice asks again through the speakers. “Had enough of cops.”

Frank doesn’t answer. It sounds like he’s adjusting his seat, laying his hands on the metal table between them. 

Foggy lowers his hand back to his side. “So what? We just let him interrogate our client without legal representation?”

“He’s not going to do that,” Karen says softly.

“And what if he—“

“Then we stop it,” Matt says, “just—“

“I’ve got a few things I got to say,” Frank’s voice comes suddenly.

Everyone falls silent. Matt can feel Karen’s shoulders tense; he thinks she might be chewing on her thumbnail.

“That right?” Carla’s voice comes back. “Lucky me.” 

Frank’s voice shifts into something entirely new. “You watch that fucking tone with me, Private.”

The energy in the room changes instantly. Matt can almost hear Carla’s posture straighten reflexively where she’s sitting. But it doesn’t last long.

“I don’t have to listen to you,” she says, but her voice feels quieter this time all the same, a little more hesitant.

“Nah, that’s right,” Frank says, “You don’t. You don’t have to do shit. But I’m gonna say what I’ve got to say; then you can go back to doing whatever the hell you’d rather be doing with your precious damn time.”

Matt thinks he hears Karen let out a huff of frustration.

“Fine,” Carla says back. “So? What is it?”

Matt hears Frank lean back, the metal of the chair flexing and scraping just a bit on the concrete floors underneath his booted feet. 

“You’re not getting anything back, being here,” Frank says. “You know that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carla says.

“What’s gone is gone. You leave it behind and you move forward. ‘Cause it’s not coming back.”

“You think you’re telling me something I don’t know.”

“Yeah. I do.” He’s quiet for a moment, then his voice hardens again. “The mission’s over, Ruiz. It’s been over for a long time.”

She doesn’t answer for a long time. “I know that,” she says finally, quietly.

“You know,” Frank starts again, “I saw your service record; hell, honestly, looks a lot like mine when I was your age. I saw Sosa’s too. It’s not quite as shiny as yours, ‘cept for one incident a few years back where he saved another Private’s ass in a real shithole of a shoot-out in the ass-end-of-nowhere.”

“You don’t know him,” she says firmly. “You don’t know me.”

“I don’t,” Frank says. “But I know me.”

Matt swallows, adjusting his grip on his cane. 

“I know some,” Frank says. “I know what I’d have done for the guys who watched my back out there, the guys who brought me back more than once. It’s realer, isn’t it, Private? That kind of truth. Realer than this fucking excuse for reality.”

There’s another longer moment of silence.

“She nodded,” Karen mutters quietly beside him.

“It’s better,” Carla says. “Back there. It’s better.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean there,” Frank says, voice rough, honest and low. “Cleaner.”

“Simpler.”

“Wanna know the real truth?” Frank says, “Truth is I can see why you’d do it. I can see how it would feel the same. Shit, not the same. Nothing’s the same. Closer though —maybe close as you’re gonna get.”

“It was the same.” Carla says suddenly. “More or less. It was us against them. You watch your friend’s back. You keep them safe.”

“You point and shoot.”

Carla’s voice hardens. “Do what’s necessary.”

“Well, Private,” Frank says, voice sounding closer, “I’ve got some shit news for you: mission’s over.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Carla snarls.

“No,” Frank says plainly. “No, I don’t. ‘Cause I know just what it feels like not to be able to snap that off. You think you can. You think it’s gonna be just that easy. You think you’ll come home, you’ll see your family, go back to that sandwich place you always liked, sit down in front of the TV with a beer on Sunday afternoon, and just like that,” he snaps, “it’s gonna be over. But it’s not. You don’t get to turn that off, do you?”

She doesn’t answer him, Matt hears Sophia taking a deep steady breath.

“And you think,” Frank continues, “that it’s all wrong, that _this_ is all wrong. That’s what people don’t get.”

“It’s all the same,” Carla says defiantly. “Here, there: it’s us and them, it’s your friends, the people trying to shoot their faces apart, and you standing between them and that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Frank says, voice almost gentle. “See, that’s what I’ve been thinking, that’s what I’ve known. But I came to tell you something, something I don’t think I really got a handle on before.”

It’s a moment before she speaks. 

“What’s that?” she asks finally, voice rough and almost tired.

Frank doesn’t answer right away. Matt feels Karen’s tension next to him. She’s watching so hard he wonders if she’s even blinking.

“I think we got it wrong, Private,” Frank says, voice quiet. “It is the same. Here. There. But… we were wrong about the lines drawn in between.” He takes a long breath. “Thing is… I don’t think anything gets to be as simple as black and white.”

Matt hangs on the empty silence humming electric and thick through the air.

Frank lets out a shaky sigh. “Shit, we make it easy. Don’t we? We make it easy ‘cause that’s what you have to do when you’re in that shit. Black and white. Point and shoot. But it’s not easy. I see now, see that the hard part’s seeing that. I see that the hard part’s coming back. Really coming back.”

Matt hears Frank’s chair shift as he leans forward.

 

“But you’re gonna listen to me, Private, and I need you to hear me because I sure as hell haven’t: you’re gonna come back. You’re gonna ‘cause there’s no truth in that black and white. It’s a dream. That’s all. And you’ve got to take that cold bucket of reality right to the face and look at this world again because that’s what we’ve got.”

“And what if… what if I can’t?”

“Why not?” Frank asks.

Her voice is shaking on the edges when she finally answers. “What if I just don’t fit anymore?”

Matt hears her sister cover her mouth gently. Foggy puts a hand firmly on her shoulder. 

Frank’s voice hardens again, that commanding tone that seems to come from someplace else snapping through it. “Then, Private, you’re a goddamn coward.”

“Fuck you,” Carla whispers, voice broken and jagged.

“No, fuck that. You don’t fit? Then you hack off those parts that keep you out and bite your lip and stitch up the holes left behind. You’re gonna get the fuck up, and you’re gonna take it one day at a time, and you’re gonna live, because you owe it to all those that can’t make that goddamn choice.”

Karen swallows next to Matt. He thinks she’s shaking just a bit. Then again, maybe that’s just him.

“Your friend’s dead,” Frank says. “You’re not.”

“He saved me,” Carla says slowly, voice hardly there, as if she’s speaking to herself. “He was the only one who… he looked out for me, through training, and the rest, and when I got back, and he asked me to join… it made sense. I could do the same I’d done for him. Just like over there. Keep him safe. And I was so close. Just one shot. Just one shot made it through. And I saw him there, bleeding out on that goddamn floor, just like the rest back in that dust and sand and… I couldn’t even do that for him. I couldn’t even—“ she stops, then finally: “I failed.”

Frank shifts, leaning forward over the table between them. “Hey, look at me, hey!” And she must look up at him, must look right into that gaze that can only be as unflinching as that voice, the voice that Matt imagines caught between dust and spinning sand, blood warm against his skin.

“You’re gonna get up,” Frank says. “You’re gonna take it one day at a time. You’re gonna clean up your mess and you’re gonna live. Because you get the choice. You hear me, Private?”

She doesn’t answer. Matt tries to imagine her face, screwed tight against the feeling hammering through her chest.

“I said do you hear me, Private?” Frank pushes back.

“Yeah,” Carla’s voice answers. It’s quiet but there’s a firmness there that hadn’t been before. “Yeah, Sergeant. I hear you.”

“Good.”

Frank’s chair scrapes backwards against the floor as he stands. On their side of the glass Sophia lets out a gasp caught between a sob. Karen hurries towards her. Matt hears Frank grab the door behind him and suddenly Matt’s turning, pulling open their door and rushing out into the hall.

He hears the interrogation room’s door shut, and Frank’s steps turn towards him.

“Frank,” Matt calls out, “Frank, I—“

Frank doesn’t stop. He walks right past him.

Foggy’s hand grabs Matt’s arm. “Matt, Matt! We have to get in there. We have call the D.A.’s office and take a statement before she changes her mind!”

Matt listens to the solid steps fade down the hallway. He brings himself back. 

“Yeah,” Matt says, “yeah, you go in, I’ll call the D.A. —go on!”

“Got it,” Foggy hurries down the hall. “Oh! And you might want to keep an eye on Sophia —I think she’s going to try and find that Frank guy and hug him and I don’t want to see how that goes.”

“Yeah,” Matt laughs hoarsely, “yeah, me neither.”

Matt fumbles in his pocket for his phone, finally getting it. Someone steps out into the hall next to him and puts a gentle hand on his arm. He stops.

“Thank you,” Karen’s voice says.

Matt shakes his head. “I think you need to go catch your partner and thank him instead.”

“No,” Karen says firmly, “I know exactly who I’m talking to.”

Matt swallows. “I’m glad she’s going to be alright, I mean, well, better. Hopefully.”

Karen smiles. “Yeah. Me, too. But I’m not saying thank you for her.”

Matt sighs, letting the phone fall back to his side and suddenly the words are falling out without permission. “I don’t know, Karen, I think —I think I really messed this up.”

“I know,” Karen says, “but look, I need you to promise me something.”

Matt looks towards the sound of her voice. “What’s that?”

“Don’t stop trying,” Karen says firmly. “Just… promise me you won’t stop. Alright?”

“I’m not…” Matt wants to laugh but it doesn’t come out right at all. “I told him, I’m really not good at this, not at… shit. I’m really not.”

Karen smiles, voice gentle and more confident than it has any right to be. “I think you’re better than you think.”

Matt shakes his head, trying to swallow the dryness out of his throat. He should say something but he’s not sure what.

“Do you promise?” she presses.

He takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah I promise.”

She squeezes his arm. “Good. Now, you’d better make that call, huh?”

“Yeah,” Matt smiles weakly back. “Yeah, I better.”

It’s Sunday. At least he’s pretty sure it’s Sunday. The past couple of days have been a bit of a blur if he’s totally honest, the past twenty-four hours even more so. 

He and Foggy were up until what felt like at least three in the morning the day before yesterday banging out the specifics of the plea deal. It took almost the whole following afternoon to take Carla’s statement, and even longer to talk through all the specifics of all that was going to happen next. Sophia insisted on taking them out to dinner, and there was no way they were saying no. There’s still more to do, but the impossible step’s behind them. There’s something about this one, something about the weight that’s lifted half an inch off their shoulders that somehow feels better than usual. 

It’s raining outside. Hard. The tall windows of Matt’s living room are pushed open just a few inches. The rain started coming down sometime in the night and hasn’t slowed since. It tip-taps against the fire-escape and hammers against the roof. There’s no wind, just the straight, simple downpour. Down on the street Matt can hear the taxis plowing through puddle-filled potholes, people hurrying back and forth with squeals and shouts, rushing forward under umbrellas or newspapers or nothing at all.

He adjusts his tie in the hallway by the door. He lifts his cane away from the side of the door, adjusting his grip, and steps into the hallway. The door clunks shut with the same weary sound it always does and he gives it a kick just to be sure it’s made it all the way.

Matt pauses in the empty silence of the hallway. He drums his fingers once, twice against the top of his cane as the rain drums overhead. Matt takes one last deep breath and heads directly across the hall.

He raises his knuckles to knock then stops. With uncertain motions he slides his glasses off his nose, folding the arms neatly behind the lenses. He pushes them down firmly into his jacket’s breast pocket with a little pat just to be sure. He twists his neck to one side quickly, clears his throat, and knocks.

There’s no sound inside. Matt’s heart thuds behind his ribs. His feet itch to turn, to head right back down the stairs. He grits his teeth, holds his ground, and he knocks again.

Someone moves inside. Steps turn his way, solid and sturdy on the old wooden floors. The door pulls open. That familiar smell comes right along with it, coffee, gun cleaner, and that something else. Something like snow. 

“Hey,” Matt says, hoping his voice doesn’t sound too unsteady.

Frank doesn’t answer right away. “Hey.”

“I uh, I had two things to say.”

Frank hasn’t shut the door yet. “Two things?”

“To say. That’s right.”

He hears Frank’s hand flex against the door frame. “Alright,” he says finally. 

“First: I’m sorry,” Matt says. “I… I don’t think I actually said that before, the other day, at the office, but I am. I meant a lot of what I said, and I’m not sorry she’s made that deal. But I’m sorry I used your words, and I’m sorry I took it as far as I did. It wasn’t… it wasn’t the right approach, for the case, for Carla. But I was… I was desperate, and tired, and… anyways. I’m sorry.”

Frank clears his throat. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t exactly in the almighty Right, either.”

Matt doesn’t answer. He’s not sure what to say.

“Sorry I left like that,” Frank says roughly, “That I didn’t talk to you after. Truth is… I have to burn things off sometimes, take some time with them. It makes me turn into a bit of a dick when I’m pissed off.”

Matt smiles. “Yeah, no kidding.”

And to his surprise it feels like Frank’s smiling too. “What else?” he asks.

“What’s that?” Matt says.

“You said two things. What’s the other one?”

Matt wets his lips. “I’m going to go get a dog. Today.”

Frank stares. “A dog?”

“Yeah. You were right. I think I’d like to have a dog.”

“Shit, Red, that’s… that’s a big deal,” Frank says quickly. “I mean it seems like you work, long hours sometimes, shit, dogs need walks and attention and training and— what happens if you’re going in early or in court or you’ve got to work late?”

“Maybe you can cover for me,” Matt says. 

Matt feels Frank smile despite himself. “I uh, yeah, I mean maybe. Guess I owe you one. Or two. Maybe three.”

Matt takes a deep breath. Last shot. “Do you want to come?”

“What? To… get the dog?”

“That’s right.”

Frank looks back at him. “That’s it? That’s what you wanted to ask me?” 

Matt takes a deep breath. “That’s it. I wanted to ask you to come down to the kennel, with me, and help me pick out a dog.”

Frank shakes his head with a deep laugh. “Shit, Red.”

“What?”

He feels Frank lift his head back up, looking back at him. “That’s just the best damn date I’ve ever been asked out on.”

Matt feels himself smile. “Yeah, honestly I was kinda banking on that being the case.” He adjusts his grip on his cane, trying not to feel so completely exposed without his glasses sitting firmly on his nose. “So… want to go?”

“What? Now?” Frank asks. He sounds a little closer.

Matt shrugs. “Yeah. Why not?”

“It’s raining, Red.”

“I did actually notice that,” Matt smiles back.

“So,” Frank starts.

“So, what?”

Matt feels a hand curl around the very bottom of his tie. 

“So,” Frank says slowly, “Maybe, we wait it out. For a bit.”

Matt wets his lips. He’s suddenly very aware of the space between them, of the weight of the hand holding steady around the base of his tie. “That’s, uh, that’s not a bad idea.”

“Yeah. Not a bad idea.”

Frank sounds like he’s looking at him, looking at him someplace other than in his eyes and Matt’s suddenly viciously curious to know where.

“Wanna come in here?” Frank asks. His voice has gone rough and low. Quieter, like it’s just for him. And how the hell is anyone supposed to say anything else to a voice like that?

“Yeah,” Matt murmurs, “yeah that sounds —yeah.”

“Good.” Frank tugs at his tie and Matt stumbles forward. 

He doesn’t have time to be worried he’ll fall because Frank’s already got him. An arm spins Matt around and plants him hard against the opposite wall. The air shoots out of Matt’s lungs in a huff and Frank catches it, shoving his mouth tight against his.

Matt hears the door swing shut, just barely, because he’s already got far, _far_ more important things scrambling around his senses. The sound of Frank’s breath fills his head like steam. Frank’s chest presses against Matt’s and he slides a wide, warm hand up Matt’s back, right under his jacket. Matt darts his tongue across Frank’s lip teasingly and Frank inhales sharply, dropping his jaw and urging his tongue against his all at once. Matt doesn’t have time to breath, and hell, he’s not even sure if he could. There’s something completely overwhelming about the way Frank kisses, something soft and full all wrapped around a starved, wild need. It’s a need that feels held back, just barely kept at bay on taut ropes and strained will. Frank kisses with an utterly destructive combustion of fury and gentleness.

Matt wonders for a fleeting hazy moment if angels would kiss like that. And Christ, he really, _really_ needs to get a grip.

Matt drops his head back to take a ragged breath but Frank doesn’t pause, pushing wide hands up Matt’s back to urge his suit jacket off his shoulders. Matt simply lets it fall, mouth feeling slack and red, arousal pulsing through his body. Matt reaches forward, desperate to get a sense of the body in front of his. Frank stills, leaning back as if he knows what Matt’s doing and wants to let him do anything he needs. Matt’s hands hit his ribs fist, just below his chest. He slides up to Frank’s chest rapidly, the solid width of it pulling Frank’s t-shirt tight across. Matt lets himself lean back against the wall with a soft, contented, curious sort of sound, and Frank takes a step closer, inviting him to look more, to find more.

Frank's breath hits Matt's neck in time with his chest, pressing quick and heavy against Matt's. Matt slides his hands lower, feeling how Frank’s waist tapers down neatly into the line of his jeans, belt buckle cool under his fingertips. Matt leaves one hand there, fingertips just hanging onto the top of his belt, angling Frank just that much closer, but not close enough to meet him, not yet. 

Matt eases his free hand back up, over his navel, over the heartbeat thudding behind his ribs, over his chest and along the lines of his collarbone to the side of his neck, thick and warm. Matt reaches Frank’s jaw, remembering how it felt up on the roof of that museum, and suddenly he’s doing exactly what he’d so wanted to do since then. He drags his thumb against Frank’s lips with just enough pressure for Frank to catch what he needs. Frank lets his mouth fall open, only a touch, only enough for Matt to feel his breath, hot and heady against his fingertips.

“Shit,” Matt swears breathlessly. His grip tightens around Frank’s belt. Frank opens his mouth a little wider, unable to stop himself from catching Matt’s thumb between his teeth. 

“Shit,” Matt says again. He tugs at the belt, bringing Frank’s hips right into his with a jolt.

Frank snaps out of his stillness, planting his hands against the wall on either side of Matt, and he’s kissing him again, rolling his hips against Matt’s with a furious greed. Matt meets him readily, maybe a little too readily, but hell, he’s always a little too ready. He grips Frank’s waist, easing his fingers up under the line of Frank’s shirt where his skin is solid heat. 

Frank pulls back again at the feeling, one hand snatching the knot of Matt’s tie and pulling it down roughly, opening the collar of Matt’s shirt to the coolness of the air. Frank darts forward, sliding his tongue along Matt’s throat in one hot, shocking line. Matt can’t help groaning, hips jerking forward all on their own, erection all too tight against the wool of his suit pants. Frank growls approvingly, free hand sliding rapidly around Matt’s back, latching around Matt’s ass and shoving them even closer as he opens his mouth against Matt’s neck again, kissing him open and hot and messy, teeth grazing, tongue teasing. 

Matt’s hands scramble against the back of Frank’s shirt and he realizes he really, _really_ needs it to be off as soon as fucking possible.

Frank seems to get the hint and takes a step back. Matt almost slides right off the wall and he hears Frank laugh in a rough, light way.

“Fuck you,” Matt grins, reaching out for him blindly, looking for something to grab hold of, anything.

Frank’s fingers wrap warm and tight around his searching ones. “God, Red,” Frank says, the sound of his shirt hitting the floor. “You sound _way_ too good when you swear.”

He pulls him close, right off the wall, and Matt’s hands find Frank’s shoulders for balance, bare and thick under his fingertips, just as warm as that night in the bar when he slipped and didn’t want to let go.

Matt urges forward but Frank holds them apart, walking them backwards as he works Matt’s tie, darting forward every once in awhile to press kisses against Matt’s lips and neck. Matt follows his lead, hands sliding down to Frank’s hips where he can easily hold on as he’s led. There’s a thrill tightening in his chest at the strangeness of the space and all the rest of it. It’s a space he doesn’t know, dangerous in that unknown, dangerous and uncertain and so full of all the smells that are Frank’s. It all clusters together in a way that makes his head feel hazy, tongue heavy, hips trying to jerk forward stupidly, hungrily. 

Frank tosses the tie aside. He slides a hand up Matt’s chest across his dress shirt. “You said you had a bunch of these?”

“What?” Matt blinks. “Yeah, but—“

Frank grips to one side and pulls hard, popping the buttons right off the dress shirt and sending them skittering across the floor with a variety of little clicks and rolls that disappear into the hammering of the rain.

“Better.”

Matt hears himself laughing again in a wild, breathy sort of way. “Fuck you.”

“Yeah, Red,” Frank growls back, voice so close to him, close enough to feel the rumble of it against his bare chest, and Frank’s hands snap to his hips, turning him fast and pushing him firmly against a new wall. “Whatever you say.” His hand shoves tight over the hard line of Matt’s cock.

Matt hisses in shock and pleasure, his head slamming back against the wall, which he realizes all at once feels much more like a door. 

Frank huffs his interest and presses close again, grinding the weight of his palm against Matt’s erection through the thin fabric of his suit pants. Matt shudders, the feeling jolting through him with shocking speed. He scrambles for a grip, finding Frank’s shoulder and holding so tight he’s probably hurting him.

“Fuck, Frank—!“ Matt gasps as Frank’s hand grips him as well as he can and slides firmly downward.

“Yeah?” Frank asks, voice low, so close, close enough to taste.

Matt licks his lips, nodding in a quick messy way. “Yeah. Yeah—”

He cants his hips into Frank’s grip, totally unable to stop himself from wantonly arching his back against the wall, from sliding the hand on Frank’s shoulder up his neck, into Frank’s just-long-enough-to-grip hair. He tugs on it.

Frank hisses, urging hand against Matt’s cock even closer, even tighter.

“God—“ Matt’s eyes snap open. He shakes his head with a rough laugh. “This your room?”

“In there,” Frank mutters. He sounds like he’s staring at Matt’s mouth, fascinated, transfixed.

“Good,” Matt’s free hand finds the latch and pushes down firmly, sending them stumbling backwards without warning.

Frank just manages to catch him, wrapping a hand around the small of his back and pulling him close again as he chuckles, fingers working on Matt’s belt. “Kinda slutty, huh, Red?”

Matt laughs, trying his best to toe his way out of his shoes. “It’s all that confession.” 

“Fuck—“ Frank swears, darting forward to kiss him again. Matt makes it out of one shoe, catching Frank’s mouth in a hurried open kiss before he manages to get the second shoe off, kicking it aside as the rain drums down on the roof even louder. 

Something just the right height hits the back of Matt’s knees and Matt’s all too happy to let himself fall back. Frank catches his head quickly with a sudden swear. “Shit—“

“What?”

“You were going to brain yourself on the side table.”

Matt laughs breathlessly, fingers looking for Frank’s belt. “It’s alright.”

Suddenly both Frank’s hands are on either side of his face. “Nah, it’s not.”

“I’m not gonna break,” Matt says roughly, tugging on Frank’s belt as if to prove his point. He grins toothily. “You’re the one with the glass nose. Remember?”

Frank grins back. “Smart-ass.”

“Yeah,” Matt agrees as he he slides his thigh between Frank’s legs, rocking right into the heavy curve of his erection.

Frank groans, low and hard, pushing Matt back into the coolness of the sheets. He grinds down against Matt again and again, and Matt feels himself going rather breathless at the thickness of the erection tight against his leg. Frank snatches Matt around the waist, easily lifting him, and pushes him back into the middle of the bed. Frank leans back on his knees, popping Matt’s belt open, grabbing his pants and boxers in one go and tugging them off. Matt feels the brisk air around him all at once with a shocking rush. It sounds like Frank’s got his feet back on the floor, fiddling with his own belt. Matt bites his lip, leaning back into the coolness of the blankets. With a small smile Matt lets his hand find his own cock, wrapping tight and sure and giving it a steady stroke.

Frank makes a low frustrated sound and Matt does it again. He hears Frank’s belt hit the floor and then he’s climbing on top of him again, heavy thighs pushing his apart as Frank wraps his fingers hungrily around Matt’s, feeling the push and pull right along with him. Frank slips fingers between, easing Matt’s away, and Matt lets him, dropping his hands above his head and biting his swollen lips as Frank’s full palm curls tight around him. Matt groans, openly, readily, and Frank’s mouth presses hot against his skin again, tasting the line of his neck, nipping at his collarbone, licking hungrily along the line of his stomach. The hand on Matt’s cock tightens, picking up its pace just enough and Matt suddenly tenses, pressure rising, heartbeat racing—

“Hey—!“ he just manages, getting a hand against Frank’s shoulder, “—hold, hold on.”

Frank slows, hands warm and present against his skin. “What?”

“Nothing, I—“ Matt laughs, “I’m— you’re a little too good at that.”

Frank huffs out a laugh. He catches a hand in Matt’s hair without warning, arching Matt’s neck back with a tug as Matt gasps.

Frank opens his mouth again on Matt’s neck. “Good.”

“Fuck—!“ Matt swears, he focuses, blinking hard and gets his hands on Frank’s hips, pushing him back. Frank eases back taking the hint, albeit not totally willingly. 

Matt works him back until Frank’s standing on the floor at the base of the bed again. Matt doesn’t wait for him to try something else. He tightens his fingers against the bare bones of Frank’s hips and closes his hand around the base of Frank’s cock firmly.

Frank grunts, hand tightening in Matt’s hair, not pushing, not urging, just present, strong and tense. Matt slides his hand further down, getting a full sense of him with a little shocked laugh, and he can’t stop himself any more. He dives forward, sliding his open mouth wetly down the side of Frank’s cock.

Frank’s breath hitches in his chest. Matt drags his tongue right back up again and wraps his lips all the way around the tip, easing down with thick breath. 

Frank groans, hips twitching with the urge to snap forward into the warm of Matt’s lips. Matt tightens his grip around him, pulling Frank forward as he lets his tongue drag along the underside of him and Frank can’t seem to help thrusting forward as much as he dares into the heat of Matt’s mouth.

Matt slides his mouth down, once, twice, and then Frank’s hand is tightening in his hair, holding him back with a shaky breath. He runs a thumb along the line of Matt’s mouth where it’s still wrapped around him, and Matt feels his own cock jump.

Frank takes one more deep breath then pushes Matt back. Matt lets him, falling down against the bounce of the clean smelling sheets. Frank’s hips meet Matt’s instantly, all weight and warmth, and Matt can’t stop himself from grinding up desperately. Frank makes a low, rough noise, resting his forehead against the line of Matt’s shoulder and meeting him just the same, urging his hips forward. They rut together in a desperate, erratic way that feels lost and uneven and all too perfect because of it.

Matt arches his hips, rolling them under Frank’s, and suddenly the tantalizing weight of Frank’s cock grinding against the curve of his thigh, the teasing drag against the bones of his hips, is just too much. 

Matt smacks a hand against Frank’s shoulder. “Come on,” he gasps, “let’s go.”

Frank looks down at him and god, Matt wishes he could see his face. “Yeah?”

Matt licks his lip, canting his hips further back so Frank’s cock slides lower to trace Matt’s ass and it jumps at the feeling. “Yeah,” Matt gasps. “Yes. Please.”

Frank’s hand scrambles for the side table; Matt hears the sound of drawers he can’t see, but it doesn’t matter. He keeps rocking his hips, easing them against that intoxicating weight, feeling his tongue trace the line of his upper lip, the sharp edges of his own teeth. He darts his head up, catching the meat of Frank’s chest in his teeth with a little teasing nip and Frank shudders. “Shit —alright, Red, fuck—“

Matt presses his tongue against the skin between his teeth, flat and warm and salty, and Frank’s cock jumps against his again. Matt hears a cap snap and before he’s ready two firm fingers ease their way directly into him.

“Fuck! Frank—” Matt swears, throwing his head back and shaking against the sudden sensation. 

“I can stop,” Frank says, in a voice that seems like it really, really hopes it doesn’t have to.

Matt swallows, trying to wrap his mouth around “no”, but the pressure, the sensation is making his tongue stupid and useless. He shifts instead, adjusting, feeling the heat and heaviness of his own breath in his chest. He closes his eyes tight and with a sharp motion rolls his hips down again onto Frank’s hand with a messy nod.

“Alright,” Frank mutters, voice low, comforting as one hand smooths Matt’s hair back from his face even as his fingers press into him, “alright, alright.” He slides a hand under Matt’s thigh, pushes his leg back with a grip under his knee, curls his fingers and _strokes_ forward.

Matt gasps, the electric pain-pleasure of it racing up his limbs and around his head like fire. He pushes back instantly and Frank grunts in acknowledgment, doing it again. And again.

Matt groans out a curse, arching his back, rolling down for more, more, _more_. Frank doesn’t slow, doesn’t stop, and _christ_ , this is going to be it, he’s going to come just like this because he really can’t stop himself from slamming down onto the heat of his hand, the strength of his grip against his leg, the feeling his bare thigh shoved behind his—

Matt blinks, mouth falling open stupidly to warn him, and then suddenly the hand is gone. The almost whine of disappointment pulls itself out of Matt before he can realize it. His head is nothing but hazy stimulation, every muscle taut and loose at once, cock pulsing needy and heavy against his stomach. Somewhere in the distance he thinks he hears Frank opening a wrapper, muttering something soft and comforting to him, sliding a warm, damp hand along the inside of his thigh. Then he’s back as quickly as he left, thick hands lifting Matt up, easing him high up the bed and dropping him down again.

He catches Matt’s leg up over his shoulder and Matt feels his own fingers tighten in the sheets at his sides in anticipation, ready to hold on. Frank’s hand moves to the side of his face, holding it firmly, and Matt stares back at where he’s almost positive Frank’s eyes must be. He hears Frank take a deep shaky breath, “Fuck—“ and he pushes forward with a hiss.

Matt’s teeth grind instantly, his eyes screwing shut against the pressure, against that heady, impossibly full _burn_. Matt breathes through his nose, once, twice, tight and tense and Frank meets him, pushing further, closer. He slows shakily, and Matt knows that he’s not there yet, that he’s still holding back, watching him, his thumb tracing the line of Matt’s jaw uneasily. Matt takes a few deep breaths, focusing, making himself relax, making himself ease into it. It takes a moment. Then another. And finally he leans against Frank’s hand, nodding quickly and Frank groans low and hard, pushing the rest of the way.

“God—!“ Matt swears, neck arching as Frank lets out a shaky breath, hand scrambling for purchase against Matt’s thigh. 

“ _Fuck_ ,“ Frank mutters, voice lost and shaken. “Matt—“

“Yeah,” Matt gasps, “yeah,” and with that he holds his breath, braces, and eternally self-punishing, snaps his hips forward.

Frank groans, rough and staggered. He grabs Matt’s hips, rolling him back and pulling him tight again. Matt lets out a choked sound, his hands scrambling for purchase as the rain pounds against the window frames. Frank holds Matt steady, pulling back and thrusting in again and again: each time steadier, each time firmer. Matt grips Frank’s hips, feeling the strength of them holding him up, feeling the dedication in the tight knuckles easing him back and forth, that furious gentleness. 

Matt makes himself focus, makes himself arch his back just enough, and this time when Frank drives back he grinds just where he needs to and Matt cries out helplessly. He rolls his hips hard, ready for it again, and Frank certainly noticed the difference because he’s angling him himself now, easily controlling the weight of Matt’s body. The pressure’s even stronger this time and Matt falls back with a shout, feelings himself tensing, his thudding lust flexing and tightening and rolling towards the inevitable. Frank lets out a sharp, shocked sound and wraps a hand around Matt’s cock, working him up and down with sharp messy jerks in time with his thrusts and Matt’s gone. 

Matt’s eyes fly open as his hips snap down, feeling himself come in hot, heavy pulses between Frank’s fingers and that seems to do it because Frank’s grip on his leg tightens painfully. Frank’s messy hand crashes back to Matt’s hip as he lets out a stuttering shout and shoves himself impossibly even deeper. Matt barely manages to hold on, everything strung tense and taut, and then all at once the strings fall loose. Frank exhales and Matt falls back with a gasp, letting everything go slack. 

Frank pulls back in one motion and collapses onto the bed next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him closer with a surprising warmth and softness. 

Matt lets himself be pulled, not that he has much strength to do anything about it if he wanted to. He rolls into the heat of Frank’s body, into that familiar warm smell of him. Matt dumbly kisses whatever’s closest, his chest he thinks, maybe a bit of shoulder, and lets his hand wrap loosely around Frank’s arm. 

Outside the rain plinks steadily down on what sounds like a worn fire escape.

It takes a little while for Frank to speak. “Were you serious about that dog?”

Matt laughs, exhausted and so unexpectedly, remarkable comfortable. “Yeah. Yeah, I actually was.”

Frank lands a hand firmly on Matt’s ass. “You fucking better be.”

“Oh, I definitely am now.”

Frank laughs, the rumble of it comfortable under Matt’s cheek. 

“So?” Matt asks after a moment.

“So what?” Frank asks back.

“Still hate your neighbor?”

Frank snorts. “I hate to break it to you, Red, but you can’t see a guy dance like a dumbass to Beyonce one night then knock someone on their ass in a boxing ring the next without being seriously compromised.”

“That a fact?”

“Yeah,” Frank sighs. “That’s a fucking guarantee.”

Matt rolls over stretching out slightly before falling back.

“Kids will be here in a bit,” Frank says suddenly.

Matt jerks upright. “What!?”

Frank laughs, pulling him back. “Tonight. They’ll be here tonight.”

“Jesus,” Matt sighs. “Well, we better go get that dog. You think they’ll want to name it?”

“God,” Frank says. “Keep going like this and they’re gonna like you more than me.”

“Nah,” Matt smiles, “I don’t think so.”

“You sure about that?”

Matt lifts himself up, just enough to look towards his face. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Frank runs a hand along the side of his face, pushing his hair even more out of place with a grin. “Shows what you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading this story! It was such a pleasure and a ton of fun to write. All the kudos, comments, bookmarks, etc. are so appreciated. It's been awesome - thanks a bunch!


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